UC-NRLF 


SO    273 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


RECEIVED    BY    EXCHANGE 


Class 


ninth  year  of  a 


Deaf  Child's  Life. 


60  2,  i 

M  32_/ 


By 

met  j.  mott,  pi).  D. 


THE  NINTH  YEAR 


OF- 


A  DEAF  CHILD'S  LIFE. 


A  THESIS 

Accepted  by  the  Faculty  of  the  University  of 

Minnesota  for  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of 

Philosophy. 


—BY 

ALICE  J.  MOTT. 


PRESS  OF 

The  Faribault  Republican. 
1900. 


The  Position  of  the  Deaf  in  Society. 


Before  discussing  this  position  it  is  proper  that  I  should  de- 
fine the  term  Deaf,  as  I  use  it. 

It  is  a  word  liable  to  much  confusion  of  meaning — varying 
from  its  application  to  persons  who  have  become  hard  of  hearing 
with  age,  to  those  who  have  been  totally  deaf  from  infancy.  With 
as  much  consistency  as  possible  I  apply  it  only  to  the  hitter  class. 
The  possession  of  hearing  for  the  first  four  or  five  years  of  life,  long 
enough  to  admit  of  the  acquirement  of  speech  and  language,  vir- 
tually removes  an  individual  from  the  ranks  of  deaf-muteism,  be- 
yond recall.  The  following  pages  concern  themselves  only  with  the 
deaf  who  have  never,  within  their  own  recollection,  been  anything 
but  deaf. 

The  mass  of  Adult  Deaf — that  is  of  persons  who  were  born 
deaf  or  became  so  in  infancy — form  a  people  solitary,  apart  from 
the  hearing  world.  This  separation,  however,  I  maintain  is  social 
and  intellectual,  not  industrial  and  moral. 

The  simple  fact  that  the  tenth  United  States  Census*  revealed 
the  presence  of  but  four  deaf  persons  in  our  jails,  prisons  and  alms- 
houses,  while  the  eleventh  Census!  increases  the  number  but  to 
114,  seems  ample  evidence  of  the  exceptional  morality  of  the  Deaf 
as  a  class.  The  Deaf  constitute  iVo  per  cent,  of  our  population,  and 
furnish  but  rVo  per  cent,  of  our  criminals  and  paupers. 

Their  industrial  character  follows  as  a  warrantable  assump- 
tion: If  they  were  not  usefully  employed  somewhere,  they 
would  find  their  way  into  the  proverbial  haunts  of  the  idle  and 
unprofitable. 

Unfortunately,  Labor  reports  are  silent  upon  the  number  of 
defectives  of  any  class  employed  in  the  various  industries,  and  we 

*Tenth   Census — Compendium — Miscellaneous  Statistics — Defective  Class- 
es.    (F.  Wines). 

fEleventh  Census — Compendium — Part  II.  Miscellaneous  Statistics. 


4 

have  no  data  of  the  economic  loss  to  the  individual  worker  of  his 
sense  defect.* 

Certain  officers  of  Schools  for  the  Deaf  have  collected  statistics 
for  their  own  statcs.f  To  thirty  letters  of  inquiry  addressed  to  the 
Superintendents  of  the  most  important  schools  for  the  Deaf  in 
America,  I  have  received  the  almost  invariable  answer  that  all  per- 
sons who  have  passed  through  their  schools  or  even  entered  its 
doors,  are  not  only  capable  of  self-support  but  actually  supporting 
themselves.J  (Of  how  many  public  schools  can  the  same  be  said?) 

*I  give  for  what  it  is  worth  the  opinion  of  a  few  individuals  who  have  em- 
ployed the  deaf  at  certain  industries,  viz  :  That  of  a  foreman  of  a  printing 
office  who  employed  two  deaf-mutes,  of  a  lady  who  had  two  deaf  servant  girls, 
and'  several  persons  who  have  employed  deaf  men-of-all  work.  According  to 
this  individual  testimony  (which  of  course  is  too  special  to  have  any  general 
bearing)  the  deaf  worker  is  as  rapid,  as  deft  and  more  ccncentrated  than  the 
ordinary  hearing  employee. 

It  is  the  common  testimony,  also,  that  the  deaf  worker  is  very  keen  to  dis- 
cover and  demand  his  rights,  and  much  less  likely  to  accept  infringement  of 
them  than  the  average  servant. 

f  Nebraska,  for  example. 

\ Answers  to  the  question  (by  letter)  "What  proportion  of  the  persons  who 
have  been  educated  at  your  school  do  you  regard  as  self-supporting  ?" 

"  I  consider  every  graduate  of  this  school  able  to  earn  an  independent  sup- 
port." (The  question  was  misunderstood  :  it  did  not  only  apply  to  graduates, 
but  to  all  who  had  enjoyed  state  instruction. 

J.  W.   SWILER, 

Supt.  Wisconsin  School. 

"  All  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know.  One  young  man  was  in  his  county  poor- 
house  some  years  ago,  who,  because  of  sickness,  was  unable  to  work.  I  think 
he  has  regained  his  health  and  is  now  supporting  himself." 

THOS.  L.  MOSES, 

Principal  of  Tenn.  School. 

(I  did  not  receive  answers  to  all  of  my  letters  of  inquiry :  probably  some 
states  keep  no  record.  But  there  was  not  one  exception  to  the  general  con- 
fidence that  the  deaf,  whether  well  or  illy  educated,  fall  readily  into  persistent 
industrial  habits,  and  have  sufficient  business  sense  to  profit  by  their  own  labor). 

"I  take  it  you  mean  how  many  are  capable  of  self-support,  as  temporary 
causes  might  leave  many  out  of  employment  who  are  fitted  for  it,  and  ready 
when  the  opportunity  offers.  I  reply,  All,  except  those  who  may  be  mentally 
deficient.  I  put  in  the  self-supporting  class  those  young  women  who  may  be 
working  at  home  without  wages."  (Very  justly), 

CHAS.  W.  ELY, 

Supt.  of  Md.  School. 

"Less  than  5  per  cent,  of  those  educated  at  this  Institution  have  failed  to 
be  self-supporting." 

E.  A.  CURRIER, 

Principal  of  N.  Y.  Institution. 


The  point  is  to  be  emphasized  that  they  are  also  self-reliant,  and 
aggressive  in  maintaining  their  rights. 

Unless  we  admit  the  peculiar  mental  structure  of  the  Deaf,  we 
must  explain  their  exceptional  habits  of  industry  by  their  training 
and  surroundings.  The  system  of  education  in  vogue  for  the  Deaf 
in  America  is  unparalleled  by  any  provision  made  for  ordinary 


"  I  cannot  tell  just  what  proportion,  but  it  is  very  large." 

JOB  WILLIAMS, 

Supt.  Hartford  Asylum. 

' '  Practically  all.  We  only  know  of  three  who  are  not  self-supporting,  and 
two  of  these  three  have  other  afflictions  beside  deafness." 

F.  D.  CLARKE, 

Supt.  Michigan  School. 

"A  large  number  of  our  pupils  are  now  self-supporting  :  I  know  of  none 
of  the  intelligent  ones  who  are  not  making  a  living." 

W.  K.   ARGA, 

Supt.  Colorado  Institution. 

"  In  the  sense  that  a  person  is  self-supporting  when  not  supported  by  the 
county,  all  of  our  people  are  self-supporting." 

H.  E.  DAWES, 

Supt.  Nebraska  School. 

"I  have  never  heard  of  any  deaf  mutes  educated  here  being  sent  to  an 
almshouse  or  county  poor-house." 

A.  ROGERS, 

Supt.  Kentucky  School. 

"  2806  pupils  have  been  reported  as  going  out  from  this  school.  Nearly  all 
males,  completing  a  full  course,  are  capable  of  self-support  at  manual  labor. 
Comparatively  few  of  the  young  women  are  wage-earners,  yet  they  are  capable 
of  making  a  full  return  for  all  that  is  expended  upon  them  by  their  friends, 
through  domestic  or  household  service." 

J.  C.  GORDON, 

Illinois  School. 

"As  far  as  I  have  learned,  the  adult  deaf  of  the  state  are  self-supporting." 

E.  R.   TAYLOR, 

Supt.  of  the  Maine  School. 

"  I  should  say  that  about  95  per  cent,  of  our  former  pupils  are  self-support- 
ing. Indeed  I  do  not  know  of  any  who  are  not  earning  their  own  living." 

WM.   N.  BURT, 

Principal  W.  Penn.  School. 

"All,  as  far  as  I  know." 

F.  W.   METCALF, 

Supt.  Utah  School. 

"All." 

W.  WILKINSON, 

Supt.  California  School. 


youth.*  Of  the  fifty-seven  public  schools  for  the  Deaf— (i.  e. 
schools  supported  wholly  or  partially  by  the  state)  only  four  lack 
a  trades  department.  Of  the  twenty-nine  public  day  schools,  only 
eighteen  are  provided  with  manual  training,  as  it  is  much  more 
difficult  to  control  hours  of  labor  there  than  in  a  Boarding  school ; 
but  of  the  fifteen  private  and  denominational  schools,  eleven  fur- 
nish manual  training.  Thus  of  the  one  hundred  and  one  institu- 
tions for  the  Deaf  in  America,  eighty-two  make  training  of  the 
hand,  and  actual  preparation  for  a  chosen  life  work,  of  equal  im- 
portance with  school  work. 

The  highest  actual  number  of  trades  in  one  school  taught  is 

seventeen.f 

Some  influence  has  resulted  in  giving  the  Deaf  more  indus- 
trial self-reliance  than  the  Hearing,  as  a  class.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  assume  that  the  habits  of  industry,  the  regular  hours,  the  cus- 
tom of  prompt  and  exact  obedience,  the  tendency  to  regard  the 
world  as  a  workshop  and  the  person  of  government  as  absolutely 
respectable  and  authoritative— to  assume  that  all  these  predilec- 
tions of  the  Deaf  have  been  contributed  by  his  peculiarly  appro- 
priate school-training. 

As  regards  the  wholly  uneducated  Deaf,  they  have  usually 
been  deprived  of  school  privileges  for  the  economic  reason.  "I 
kept  him  at  home  to  help  on  the  farm,"  is  the  almost  invariable 
excuse  assigned  by  the  guardian  of  a  neglected  deaf  child  for  the 
neglect. 

Thus,  by  severe  training  if  not  natural  aptitude,  the  uneducated 
deaf  mute  becomes  industrious  beyond  the  fashion  of  boys  and 
girls.  Besides,  these  sense-defectives,  as  they  possess  fewer  incen- 

*American  Annals  for  the  Deaf,  Washington,  D.  C.  (Gibson  Bros.) — Jan- 
uary, 1899— Tables  prepared  by  E.  A.  Fay. 

fSt.  Joseph's  Institute,  N.  Y. 

The  various  industries  taught  In  all  the  schools  are  thus  enumerated  by  Mr. 
Fay — Annals — Jan.  1899 — p.  69. 

"Art,  Baking,  Barbering,  Basket-making,  Blacksmithing,  Bookbinding, 
Bricklaying,  Broom-making,  Cabinet-making,  Calcimining,  Carpentry,  Chalk- 
engraving,  Cementing,  Cooking,  Clay  modeling,  Coopery,  China-painting,  Draw- 
ing, Dress-making,  Embroidery,  Engineering,  Fancy-work,  Farming,  Floricul- 
ture, Gardening,  Glazing,  Harness  repairing,  Housework,  Horticulture,  Ironing, 
Knitting,  Manual-training,  Mattress-making,  Millinery,  Painting,  Paper-hang- 
ing, Plastering,  Plate-engraving,  Photography,  Printing,  Sewing,  Shoemaking, 
Sloyd,  Stone-laying,  Tailoring,  Typewriting,  Venetian,  Iron  work,  Weaving, 
Wood-carving,  Wood-engraving,  Wood-turning  and  Wood- working." 


tives  to  toil,  so  also  meet  fewer  distractions,  since  their  avenues  of 
enjoyment  are  limited :  hence  habits  of  industry,  once  inculcated, 
persist  longer  than  in  the  normal  "labor  unit." 

I  suppose  no  one  will  question  the  social  isolation  of  the  deaf 
individual  in  a  hearing  community,  although  his  solitude  must  be 
studied  to  be  appreciated.  The  little  deaf  child  who,  before  his 
entrance  into  school,  has  never  exchanged  thought  with  a  living 
soul,  never  heard  a  word,  knows  not  that  a  single  person  or  thing 
ever  had  a  name,  is  not,  I  imagine,  a  peculiarly  lonely  being,  be- 
cause childhood  is  occupied  with  observation  and  action  rather 
than  reflection,  and  conversation  is  not  a  requisite  of  healthful  ac- 
tivity, especially  to  one  who  never  conversed.  But  the  graduate  of  a 
school  for  the  Deaf,  accustomed  for  a  term  of  years  to  the  intimate 
companionship  of  room-mate  and  work-fellow,  as  well  as  teacher 
and  guide,  is  an  exile  from  all  real  companionship  as  completely 
as  a  wanderer  in  foreign  lands,  among  strange  peoples,  with  alien 
thoughts  and  interests,  equipped  only  with  a  limited  guide-book 
language. 

A  person  who  has  lost  his  hearing  is  thousands  of  miles  away 
in  thought,  even,  from  the  household  in  which  he  moves.*  How 
much  more  completely  is  he  separated  when  he  has  never  caught 
the  fashions  of  thought,  feeling  and  speech  prevalent  in  the  hear- 
ing world,  never  really  learned  the  alphabet  of  its  confidences. 

The  isolation  of  the  congenitally  deaf  in  a  talking  world,  a 
world  teeming  with  chatter,  folly,  philosophy,  satire  and  senti- 
ment, is  all  the  greater  that  they  can  not  appreciate  their  solitude. 

Our  standards  of  conduct  they  have  learned  through  visible 
social  sanctions  ;  our  ideals  of  character,  our  common  delicacies  of 

* 'Century  Magazine,  January,  1897  :  "I  found  that  people  who  came  full 
of  interest  and  with  many  things  to  tell  me  seemed  to  freeze  up  and  close  the 
fountains  of  their  expression  as  soon  as  I  presented  them  with  a  pencil  and 
tablet." 

R.  W.  Dodds,  Dundee,  Scotland,  in  Am.  Annals,  February,  1899:  "By 
depriving  the  deaf  of  finger-spelling  and  obliging  them  to  mix  with  hearing 
people  instead  of  the  deaf,  we  subject  them  to  the  bitterest  isolation.  A  young 
lady  of  my  acquaintance,  whose  speech  is  excellent,  felt  such  a  sense  of  isola- 
tion that,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  she  learned  to  spell,  that  she  might  associate 
with  the  deaf.  I  have  been  repeatedly  assured  by  the  parents  of  a  deaf  speak- 
ing girl  that  she  was  rapidly  entering  a  state  of  melancholy  but  was  saved  from 
it  by  mixing  with  the  deaf.  *  *  *  *  The  deaf  among  the  deaf  can  never 
realize  the  isolation  felt  by  the  deaf  in  the  society  of  hearing  people,  no  matter 
how  good  the  speech  and  lip-reading  may  be." 


8 

sentiment  and  thought,  the  worked  out  abstractions  which  are  the 
current  coin  of  intellectual  exchange,  all  the  products  of  social  con- 
vention and  attrition,  crystallized  only  in  Belles  Lettres,  constitute 
a  sealed  book  to  them. 

They  see  things  only  through  the  eyes  of  their  deaf  comrades, 
that  is,  they  view  this  audible  world  as  a  silent  spectacle,  concern- 
ing only  themselves  who  are  outsiders. 

Only  the  exceptionally  gifted  can  employ  the  solvent  of  gen- 
eral literature.*  The  majority  are  on  terms  of  freedom  and  com- 
raderie  only  with  the  Deaf.  This  social  isolation  must  have  far 
reaching  results  in  intellectual  separation  from  the  Hearing. 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  mental  processes  might  be  as 
accurate  without  the  sense  of  hearing  as  with  it.  The  race  grows 
more  "eye-minded"  with  advancing  civilization,  and  all  educative 
influences  with  which  we  are  acquainted  (perhaps  not  even  except- 
ing music)  could  be,  I  believe,  presented  in  visible  form.  This  does 
not  alter  the  all  significant  fact  that  they  are  not  thus  presented. 
Not  a  deaf  man  in  a  deaf  world,  but  a  deaf  man  in  a  hearing  world, 
is  to  be  considered. 

The  education  of  the  Deaf  in  the  language  of  this  actual  world, 
begins  and  ends  with  school  life.f  Ten  years  may  be  long  enough 

*An  unimpeachable  authority  upon  Deaf  education  expresses  himself  thus 
clearly  :  "I  do  not  think  that  the  deaf  of  the  class  you  refer  to"  (congenitally 
and  totally  deaf)  " ever  appreciate  the  'beauties  of  literature,'  Too  much  of 
the  '  beauty  of  literature '  requires  a  clear  conception  of  the  spoken  word,  and  I 
feel  safe  in  saying  that  I  believe  the  only  deaf  who  do  take  in  its  full  power  and 
beauty  are  those  who  recall  clearly  the  spoken  word."  (The  writer  of  this  letter 
is  perhaps  as  well  acquainted  with  the  mental  standing  of  the  deaf  as  a  hearing 
man  could  possibly  be.) 

At  this  point,  also,  I  would  bring  in  my  own  experience.  I  once  asked  sev- 
eral adult  students  in  the  Minnesota  Institution  how  many  knew  the  meaning  of 
poetry.  All  anwered  that  they  knew,  and  denned  it  immediately:  "Poetry  is 
printing  which  begins  every  line  with  a  capital." 

I  asked  them  if  writing  or  speaking  could  be  poetry.  They  thought  not, 
but  one  member  of  the  class  knew  better,  and  corrected  them.  He  had  learned 
some  poetry  once,  and  proceeded  seriously  to  write  it,  amid  the  solemn  admira- 
tion of  his  classmates  : 

"Remember  me  when  far,  far  off, 

Where  the  woodchucks  die  of  the  whooping  cough." 

•f  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  seldom  possible  to  give  the  absolutely  deaf  more 
than  a  rudimentary  education  in  the  eight  or  ten  years  of  school  life. 

The  curriculum  attempted  by  all  the  best  schools,  which  fits  for  the  Na- 
tional Deaf  Mute  College,  includes  only  the  elements  of  Arithmetic,  Geography, 
History  and  Science,  with  sufficient  English  to  enable  the  student  to  read  his 
text  books,  and  express  himself  correctly. 


9 

to  inculcate  order,  industry  and  honesty,  but  are  painfully  short, 
when  we  think  of  crowding  into  them  the  culture  of  a  lifetime,  the 
social  discipline  of  nursery,  playground,  school  room,  church,  Sun- 
day-school, college,  drawing-room,  lecture-hall,  in  short,  all  the 
friction  of  inner  deaf  man  with  inner  hearing  world,  for  with  few 
exceptions,  all  later  association  of  deaf  with  hearing  will  be  either 
bussiness  association  or  perfunctory.  That  many  phases  of  life 
must  be  left  untouched  in  this  educational  scheme,  even  under  the 
best  pedagogical  system  ever  devised,  is  too  obvious  to  require 
demonstration,  and  also  that  the  mental  outlook  of  the  subject  must 
be  by  this  very  limitation  poorer  and  narrower  than  it  might  other- 
wise have  been.* 

Added  to  the  lack  of  general  association  with  one's  kind  is  the 
second  deprivation  of  the  deaf — the  lack  of  a  higly  conventional- 
ized language  in  which  to  clothe  their  thoughts. 

English,  German  or  French,  must  always  remain  "foreign"  to 
the  deaf  man,  taught  onty  in  the  few  short  hours  of  school  in  the 
few  short  years  of  youth. 

His  natural  language  of  signs  is  capable  of  great  richness  and 
delicacy,  but  in  its  present  half-tabooed  position  among  the  intel- 
ligent deaf  and  in  all  schools,  it  never  attains  the  artificial  and 
symbolic  element  necessary  to  express  abstractions,  hence  can  not 
serve  as  the  vehicle  for  profound  thought. 

*  As  a  single  instance  of  the  mental  limitation  consequent  directly  upon 
lack  of  conversation  and  general  society,  I  adduce  the  undeveloped  state  of  the 
sense  of  humor,  one  of  the  first  marks  of  a  rounded  intelligence. 

I  do  not  deny  the  deaf  their  full  love  of  fun.  (Eschke, )  the  German  Oralist, 
called  them  "natural  comedians";  but  a  little  experience  of  my  first  year  in 
teaching  drawing  to  the  deaf,  conveyed  to  me  as  clearly  as  later  association  has 
done;  that  the  deaf  cannot  possibly  have  any  conception  of  our  modern  humor, 
depending  as  it  does  so  largely  upon  delicacies  of  language.  They  have  a 
humor  of  their  own,  (i.  e.  the  humor  of  signs),  which  is  Greek  to  us  as  ours  is 
Sanskrit  to  them. 

I  one  day  painstakingly  spelled  some  verbal  witticism  to  a  class  of  deaf 
children.  They  eyed  me  wonderingly:  "Is  it  true?"  "No,"  I  was  obliged 
to  confess.  "Are  you  trying  to  be  funny?  "  I  modestly  disclaimed  any  such 
intention.  "Then  you  are  a  liar."  I  now  retracted,  and  said  that  I  was  trying 
to  be  funny.  This  relieved  the  tension  all  over  the  room."  "She  is  funny, 
funny."  All  laughed  heartily,  but  I  learned  later  that  any  avowed  attempt  at  a 
joke  is  similarly  received,  so  that  it  was  no  compliment  to  my  wit. 

In  endeavoring  to  teach  the  "Third  Class"  (pupils  ranging  from  fourteen 
to  twenty  years  of  age)  the  unfamiliar  terms,  "Cube,  Sphere,  Circle  and 
Square,"  I  was  not  surprised  at  great  difficulty,  but  I  was  surprised  when  the 
following  accidental  combination  evoked  not  a  smile  from  an  occupant  of  the 
school  room  excepting  the  teacher:  "Clubs,  Split,  Cackle,  Squawk." 


10 

All  limitations  of  the  Adult  Deaf  seem  to  be  explainable  by 
these  two  causes,  and  their  peculiarities  to  be  only  limitations, 
though  it  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  prove  that  the  cutting  off  of 
one  of  the  three  great  avenues  of  impression  should  in  itself  result 
in  no  mental  divergence  from  the  normal. 

We  find  here  a  chapter  in  human  development  of  the  action 
and  reaction  of  constitution  and  accident,  which  still  awaits  its 
reader. 

Its  study  might  throw  light  upon  some  vexed  problems  as  to 
the  basis  of  knowledge  and  the  foundations  of  morality,  by  noting 
the  divergence  from  normal  standards  of  intelligence  and  ethics  in 
a  more  or  less  isolated  human  being.  Feeling  that  only  in  detail 
and  by  slow  degrees  can  the  subject  be  approached,  I  have  chosen 
for  investigation  but  a  tiny  space  in  this  field  of  inquiry,  collected 
a  few  facts  in  regard  to  this  period,  and  present  them  for  what  they 
are,  merely  a  beginning  in  an  interesting  research,  as  far  as  I  know, 
yet,  wholly  unworked. 

I  have  chosen  for  my  study,  the  ninth  year  of  a  Deaf  Child's 
life,  a  period  of  especial  significance  in  being  his  first  year  in  school, 
and  the  line  of  demarcation  from  a  languageless  existence  to  that 
of  a  growing  vocabulary — both  Sign  and  English. 

Experience  with  three  successive  classes  of  deaf  children  at 
this  stage  in  the  years  1893  and  4 — 1896  and  7 — has  furnished  my 
material  for  generalization. 

Experiments  and  tests  have  been  taken  with  the  present  first 
year  class  in  the  Minnesota  School  for  the  Deaf,  i.  e.,  those  who 
entered  school  in  Sept.  1898. 

In  absence  of  direct  communication  at  the  outset  of  the  school 
year,  when  the  children  lack  even  a  sign  language,  all  facts  then 
noted  are  indirect  in  their  bearing. 

I  should  state  at  the  outset  one  assumption  I  have  felt  war- 
ranted in  making:  namely,  that  any  evidence  of  reasoning  and  ab- 
straction discovered  during  the  first  year  in  the  education  of  a 
young  child,  is  also  evidence  that  he  had  the  power  of  reasoning 
before  school  was  entered ;  since  it  is  utterly  impossible  that  men- 
tal faculties  could  be  created  or  greatly  developed  in  a  few  short 
months  ot  language  drill. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  any  expression  of  reflection  could 


11 

only  arise  after  some  weeks,  at  least,  of  residence,  among  school- 
mates and  teachers,  using  and  encouraging  every  possible  means  of 
communication.  So,  of  course,  it  can  never  be  quite  disproved 
that  any  particular  conception  of  the  child's  may  not  have  been 
borrowed  in  toto  from  an  older  person;  but  this  could  not  stand  as 
a  general  assumption  as  in  the  case  of  any  other  child;  and  the 
habit  of  seizing  on  abstractions  and  making  them  one's  own,  lies 
very  near  the  process  of  abstraction. 


The  Eight-Year-Old  Deaf  Child. 


A   DEAF  CHILD'S   NINTH   YEAR,  OR  THE  FIRST  YEAR 
IN  A  DEAF  CHILD'S  SCHOOL  LIFE. 


By  the  regulations  of  the  Minnesota  Institute  for  Defectives,  a 
deaf  child  is  admitted  to  the  School  when  eight  years  of  age. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  few  are  admitted  under  this  age,  and 
Why  an  important  many  do  not  avail  themselves  of  the  privilege  un- 
ase-  til  much  older. 

It  is  fairly  the  opinion  of  the  school  authorities  that  the  best 
results  accrue  from  the  ten  years'  course  when  taken  between  the 
ages  of  eight  to  ten  and  eighteen  to  twenty.  But,  from  my  own 
experience  of  primary  work  with  the  Deaf,  I  regard  it  as  far  less 
injurious  to  defer  putting  a  deaf  child  in  school  until  the  age  of 
twelve  than  to  subject  him  to  the  routine  of  the  school-room  at  six 
or  seven.* 

*  Because,  as  will  appear  in  the  account  of  First  Year  School  Work,  lack 
of  interest,  in  a  school  for  the  Deaf,  is  fatal  to  progress.  The  child  can  not 
learn  unless  he  is  paying  strict  attention.  An  ordinary  child  may  hear  a  little, 
when  he  is  not  listening  ;  a  deaf  child  sees  nothing  when  be  is  not  looking.  No 
one  can  pay  strict  voluntary  attention  to  that  in  which  he  is  not  interested.  The 
period  of  novelty  must  be  utilized  to  give  the  first  impetus  in  teaching  the  deaf  ; 
if  the  deaf  chilld  is  too  young  to  learn  to  read  and  write  in  that  first  period  of 
novelty,  if  his  first  ardor  cools  before  he  has  got  hold  of  his  tool,  the  loss  is 
never  made  good. 

I  have  in  mind,  at  present,  four  bright  deaf  children  who  were  lost  to  good 
scholarship  the  first  and  third  years  of  my  primary  teaching,  by  entering  school 
a  year  too  early. 

It  is  exceedingly  injurious  for  a  deaf  child  to  work  with  a  class  in  advance 
of  himself,  especially  at  first.  He  invariably  learns  to  "copy"  after  one  or  two 
failures,  and  it  is  easier  to  close  the  box  of  Pandora  than  to  eradicate  the  habit 
of  "copying."  Little  children  pick  up  their  knowledge  objectively,  quite  uncon- 
scious of  the  avenues  through  which  it  comes,  and  steal  without  knowing  it. 


13 

I  entered  upon  the  inquiry  here  recorded  without  any  hobby 
to  ride,  and  no  particular  bias,  except  a  general  unfounded  preju- 
dice against  "infant  education."  I  have  made  no  attempt  to  reach 
hard  and  fast  conclusions,  or  to  uphold  any  side  of  any  question 
which  may  arise  ;  but  I  cannot  avoid  mentioning  the  one  convic- 
tion to  which  my  inquiry  has  brought  me  —  namely,  that  the  mind 
of  a  child  suffers  no  deterioration  from  lying  fallow  for  its  first 
eight  years. 

The  popular  enthusiasm  for  the  education  of  babies,  which 
has  enlisted  in  the  Kindergarten  the  best  teaching  talent  of 
America,  (much  to  the  detriment,  I  must  think  of  primary  and 
intermediate  schools)  is  founded  upon  the  principle  that,  educa- 
tionally speaking,  the  first  years  of  life  are  most  important  :  or,  in 
other  words,  that  infant  development,  mental  and  moral,  is  less  in- 
dependent —  less  instinctive  —  more  conditioned  upon  the  conscious 
efforts  of  instructor  than  the  mind  of  the  youth.  Against  this 
commonly  accepted  principle  I  am  hardly  Quixotic  enough  to 
tilt:  I  simply  note  that,  however  rusty  be  the  unused  faculties  of 
the  adult  deaf,  I  have  collected  no  evidence  that  the  untaught 
deaf  child  of  eight,  though  ignorant  beyond  conception,  is  less 
capable  of  imbibing  knowledge  or  adopting  codes  of  conduct  than 
the  ordinary  eight-year-old  product  of  schoolroom,  Sunday  School 
and  Kindergarten.* 

I  have  chosen  for  the  special  subjects  of  this  essay,  ten  deaf 
children  who  entered  school  last   fall;   eight   of 
them  were  eight  years  of  age;  one  was  nine,  at  the 


time  of  entering,  and  the  last  ten. 

They  are  all  totally  deaf  and  have  been  so  from  infancy.  I 
should  have  been  glad  to  consider  a  large  number,  but  the  ten  se- 
lected include  nearly  all  the  class  which  entered  in  September, 
1898,  at  the  proper  age;  and  in  all  perceptible  ways  these  ten  ap- 


*  The  class  entering  Sept..  1899,  averages  older  than  any  class  I  have 
hitherto  taught,  and  emphasizes  the  view  just  stated.  The  regular  members 
range  from  eight  to  fifteen  years  of  age  and  average  eleven  years.  No  loss  of 
mental  ability  is  apparent  from  the  delay  in  beginning  routine  school  work, 
rather,  I  call  it  an  exceptionally  superior  class.  Now  in  the  eleventh  week  of 
school,  (Dec.  i,),  the  class  has  learned  ninety  (90)  words,  to  read,  write  and 
spell  and  to  use  in  simple  sentences. 


14 

peared  to  me  and  to  their  teacher  to  be  strictly  average  deaf  child- 
ren.* 

I  say  nearly  the  whole  entering  class,  and  proceed  to  explain 
why  any  exceptions  have  been  made.  If  any  child,  even  though 
born  quite  deaf,  shows  peculiar  aptitude  for  speech,  he  is  placed  in 
an  oral  class  upon  entering:  in  this  class,  signs  are  wholly  es- 
chewed and  he  is  taught  entirely  by  speech  and  writing,  Thus  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  communication,  great  enough  in  any  case, 
are  so  enhanced  as  to  make  it  really  unfeasible  to  include  these 
subjects  in  the  tests.  Besides,  my  experience  in  the  past  has 
touched  only  manual  |  classes  and  my  opinions  in  regard  to  oral 
classes  would  be  founded  upon  hearsay. 

Four  children  eight  years  of  age  were  placed  in  an  oral  class 
this  year  and  thus  lost  to  me. 

Again,  every  class  of  deaf  children  contains,  upon  entering,  a 
certain  proportion  of  subjects  of  feeble  intellect.  The  disease 
which  caused  deafness  may  have  affected  the  mind ;  moreover, 

*  I  have  purposely  delayed  putting  my  manuscript  into  print  in  order  to 
compare  the  class  entering  Sept.  1898  with  that  which  entered  Sept.  1899,  and 
in  all  essential  particulars  I  have  subjected  the  latter  to  the  tests  which  I  em- 
ployed  with  the  former.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  results  with  both  classes  are 
very  closely  alike ;  a  fact  which  substantiatss  my  assumption  that  in  limiting  at- 
tention to  the  average  members  of  a  first  year  class  of  eight-year-old  children 
totally  deaf  from  infancy,  admitted  under  certain  conditions  to  a  particular 
school,  a  very  homogeneous  group  is  obtained,  yielding  more  general  data,  I 
should  suppose,  than  the  examination  of  several  hundred  children,  taken  indif- 
ferently from  all  school  grades,  social  classes  and  natural  conditions.  The 
very  fact  of  deafness  renders  the  group  a  homogeneous  one,  while  the  sense  of 
hearing  introduces  heterogeneity  into  experience  of  a  normal  child. 

f  The  ranks  of  educators  of  the  Deaf  are  divided  by  a  chasm  too  deep  for 
respect  or  courtesy  to  pass,  into  Oralists  and  Manualists.  The  former  believe 
that  the  Deaf  should  be  taught  speech  and  lip  reading,  by  speech  and  lip  read- 
ing and  writing  alone,  and  claim  that  the  admission  of  signs  into  a  school  ham- 
pers true  progress  and  retards  the  acquirement  of  speech. 

The  Manualists  admit  the  claim,  and  find  in  the  "law  of  parsimony"  their 
justification.  Since  signs  are  always  preferred  by  the  Deaf  as  easier  and  more 
interesting,  says  the  Manualist,  they  are  the  natural  vehicle  of  communication 
with  the  Deaf.  Besides,  while  the  Oralists  condemn  the  Manualists  for  what 
they  do,  the  latter  condemn  the  former  for  their  lack  of  fruit.  Not  what  we 
could  teach  the  Deaf,  if  they  would  only  stop  signing,  but  what  we  do  teach 
them,  taking  them  as  they  are,  is  the  criterion  of  success. 

Most  of  the  State  Institutions  use  the  "Combined  System"  which  strives  to 
reconcile  two  mutually  exclusive  methods.  By  this  system  all  are  given  an  op- 
portunity to  learn  speech,  but  not  denied  instruction  altogether,  if  unable  to 
profit  by  the  Oral  Method. 


15 

parents  of  dumb  children  send  them  to  a  school  for  the  deaf 
in  preference  to  an  asylum  for  imbeciles,  cherishing  the  hope  that 
the  children  are  not  diM  but  only  deaf.  These  are  weeded  out  in 
the  course  of  a  year  or  two,  but  it  will  be  seen  that  a  first  year 
class  nearly  always  contains  a  modicum  of  mental  abnormality, 
not  to  be  found  in  an  eight-year-old  class  of  hearing  children,  of 
two  years  standing  in  school. 

Since  I  excluded  from  my  examination  the  four  speaking 
children,  supposed  to  be  the  brightest  of  the  new  pupils,  I  have 
also  ignored  two  very  dull  children,  who  would  probably,  if  not 
deaf,  have  been  placed  in  an  institution  for  the  feeble-minded. 

Perhaps  I  may  mention  here  some  of  the  marks  by  which  an 
experienced  primary  teacher  distinguishes  a  deaf 
child  of  good  intellect  before  any  communication  Deaf  Children, 

has  been  established. 

Physical  features,  like  the  conformation  of  the  head  and  face, 
the  gait  and  carriage,  count  for  much,  but  may  be  over-rated; 
physical  defects,  like  any  impairment  of  the  sight  or  crippling  of 
the  hands,  really  retard  mental  development  with  the  deaf  far 
more  than  with  the  hearing,  by  blocking  another  avenue  of  ex- 
perience.* 

The  facial  expression  is  significant,  but  likely  to  mislead  those 
unacquainted  with  the  deaf. 

A  quick,  bird-like  motion  of  the  head  and  lively  glancing  of  the 
eyes  from  one  object  to  another  give  a  false  impression  of  vivacious 
intelligence;  hence  a  stranger  is  nearly  always  mistaken  in  an  es- 
timate of  the  brighter  members  of  a  class.  In  my  experience,  the 
more  stolid  and  unimpassive  faces  usually  betoken  the  better 
minds  among  the  untaught,  though  this  may  not  be  true  of  the 
educated  Deaf.  I  think  this  impassiveness  is  the  attitude  of  a 
self-contained  and  thoughtful  nature,  too  proud  to  display  a  lively 
interest  in  matters  beyond  its  comprehension,  while  the  monkey- 
like  inquisitiveness  of  a  lighter  mind,  more  unconsciously  dis- 
played, give  the  face  an  expression  of  keenness  iind  intelligence. 

*  Since  all  information  must  be  conveyed  through  the  eye  and  all  expres- 
sion pass  through  the  hand,  the  crippling  of  either  organ  is  serious  in  the  ex- 
treme. Defective  eyesight  retards  observation  and  renders  all  impressions 
vague  and  confused.  Difficulty  in  writing  prevents  the  pupil  from  acquir- 
ing the  habit  of  industry,  the  main  dependence  of  the  teacher. 


16 

So,  as  a  rule,  it  is  not  the  children  who  will  eventually  get  the 
most  out  of  their  school  career  who  take  most  kindly  to  school  life 
at  first.  The  deeper  natures  are  less  easily  transplanted,  and 
extreme  home  sickness  may  he  either  an  indication  of  superior 
home  surroundings,  or  of  an  affectionate  and  thoughtful  child.* 

It  must  never  be  assumed  that  a  child  is  '  'stupid  "  or  "  ugly  " 
because  he  refuses  to  work  at  his  school  tasks  the  first  week. 
Very  bright  children,  afterwards  docile  and  orderly,  have  been 
known  to  lie  on  their  oars  for  a  month  before  they  could  prevail 
upon  themselves  to  accept  the  new  ordering  of  their  lives. 

For  reasons  apparent,  I  also  omit  from  consideration  the  new 
pupils  of  advanced  age;  these  afford  an  exceedingly  interesting 
study,  but  outside  the  scope  of  this  paper. 

I  have  aimed  to  centre  my  attention  upon  average  deaf  chil- 
dren, eight  years  of  age,  and  to  compare  them  with  the  average 
eight-year  old  hearing  child,  in  all  respects  in  which  data  of  nor- 
mal children  were  available. 

Some  tests  of  the  comparative  efficacy  of  deaf  and  hearing 
children  have  been  added. 


*  The  forms  which  homesickness  takes  with  the  Deaf  are  numerous.  (Al- 
most every  deaf  boy  would  run  away  the  first  night  if  he  could  find  his  way  to 
the  railroad  ;  but  he  will  not  leave  his  hat;  and  the  easiest  way  of  keeping  the 
flock  of  new  children  together  is  to  hang  their  hats  in  some  inaccessible  but 
visible  place.)  A  little  girl  who  was  heart-broken  when  left  by  her  parents, 
upon  their  re-appearance  the  next  week  refused  to  recognize  them,  declaring  in 
signs  that  she  did  not  know  them 

A  boy  who  afterward  appeared  to  have  the  usual  number  of  bones,  spent 
most  of  the  first  three  weeks  bent  double,  glancing  neither  to  the  right  nor  left 
but  running  in  and  out  of  his  stocking  a  pin  which  he  had  providentially  brought 
from  home. 

Another  kept  his  head  enveloped  in  a  large  red  handkerchief  for  two  weeks, 
never  removing  it  except  to  eat. 

The  desire  to  yield  is  evidently  strong  long  before  it  can  be  accomplished. 
But  when  one  of  these  stubborn  cases  first  takes  his  pencil  to  frame  a  single  letter 
he  gives  up  once  for  all.  Most  children  give  up  the  battle  after  the  first  night. 
Several  cases  are  on  record,  in  our  own  school,  of  children  who  came  out  first 
in  the  contest,  and  had  to  be  taken  home.  But  these  were  not  brought  to  school 
until  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old. 

One  large  boy  maintained  the  attitude  of  a  caged  lion  for  four  months,  one 
year  (until  sent  home)  and  for  five  months,  the  next  year;  he  absolutely 
refused  to  touch  a  pencil  and  ate  and  slept  only  under  protest.  Then  he  suc- 
cumbed and  became  a  bright  and  interested  student. 

German  children  are  more  stubborn  in  their  homesickness  than  those  of  any 
other  nationality. 


17 

My  object  has  been  to  find  tests  of  physical  and  mental  pow- 
ers, applicable  both  to  hearing  and  to  deaf,  to  the  normal  child 
and  to  the  child  cut  off  forever  from  all  auditory 
impressions.    The  tests  chosen  have  been  few  and  comparison, 

simple,   since   only   such    could    be    thoroughly 
applied,  but  seemed  to  me  significant  as  well   as  representative. 
They  have  fallen  into  three  groups : 

1st. — Purely  physical  tests  of  bodily  strength  and  agility. 

2d. — Tests  of  manual  dexterity,  involving  some  sight  dis- 
crimination. 

3d. — Tests  of  memory  and  observation. 

Memory  and  observation  seemed  the  only  mental  powers 
capable  of  exact  comparison  between  the  two  classes  of  children  : 
as  regards  the  faculties  of  imagination  and  reason,  difficulties  of 
communication  with  both  deaf  and  hearing  would  render  such  a 
test  impossible :  but  that  reason  and  imagination  concern  them- 
selves wholly  with  matter  of  observation  and  memory,  I  suppose 
no  one  at  this  age  of  philosophy  will  question:  hence  the  com- 
parison may  not  be  so  one-sided  as  at  first  appears. 

As  above  stated,  I  examined  all  the  8-year-old  deaf  children 
I  could  find. 

I  had  more  difficulty,  as  well  as  more  latitude  of  choice  in  re- 
gard to  the  normal  children  examined.     Fearing 
that  too  limited   a   number  might   not  give   the     HearlngSubjects. 
hearing  children  a  fair  showing,  I  took  pains  to 
choose   the  best  specimens  I  could  find.     The  ten  hearing  boys 
included  in  the  athletic  tests  were  chosen  upon  their  reputation 
among  their  play-fellows,  as  being  "  awful  strong  "  and  "  fine  shoot- 
ers." 

Eight  of  the  same  boys  were  chosen  for  the  tests  in  manual 
dexterity  ;  for  the  two  dropped  were  substituted  two  rather  supe- 
rior boys,  eight  and  nine  years  of  age,  working  in  the  fifth  grade 
in  school.  These  two  (designated  as  9  and  10)  it  will  be  seen  have 
somewhat  raised  the  hearing  averages. 

The  tests  in  observation  and  memory  were  taken  with  these 
twelve  also  in  two  school-rooms  containing  mostly  eight-year-old 
children ;  one  of  these  school-rooms  contained  a  majority  of  Irish 


18 

and  French  children;  the  second,  mostly  American  and  Scandi- 
navians. 

"  9  "  and  "  10"  were  substituted  for  the  poorest  subjects  tested  in 
the  first  mentioned  school-room.  I  may  add  that  the  second  school 
was  named  by  the  Superintendent  of  the  city  schools  as  the  best 
eight-year-old  class  in  the  city. 

I  feel  assured  of  having  given  the  hearing  class  all  fair  benefits 
in  the  tests.  If  anything,  the  odds  have  been  against  the  Deaf, 
simply  as  Deaf,  as  I  think  will  be  perceived  from  the  following 
statement.  The  thirty  children  examined  in  school-room  number 
two  were  all  city  children,  surrounded  by  varied  social  influences 
from  their  birth.  Among  them  were  three  children  of  practising 
physicians,  three  of  school  teachers,  four  of  lawyers,  two  of  college 
professors,  four  of  successful  and  wealthy  merchants  and  two  of 
ministers  of  the  gospel.  From  reference  to  the  "  family  conditions  " 
of  the  deaf  children  it  will  be  perceived  that  the  parents  of  seven 
are  given  as  "poor"  (fathers  of  three  being  well-to-do  farmers) 
while  four  of  the  ten  children  are  county  charges.  Fathers  of  four 
are  poor  farmers,  the  remaining  three  being  offsprings  of  farm  la- 
borers. Nine  of  the  ten  are  of  foreign  parentage ;  all  are  country 
children. 


PHYSICAL    EXAMINATION    OF    TEN    DEAF    CHILDREN 
WHO  ENTERED  SCHOOL  SEPT.,  1898. 


The  physical  examination  of  children  I-X,  I  subjoin  in  full, 
although  I  am  not  aware  that  it  yielded  results  of 

particular  value.  Physical  Examlna- 

mi.  T.-U  T  T  n    •     i  tion  of  10  Deaf 

Inese  children,  as  nearly  as  I  could  judge,  subjects, 
seemed  ordinarily  robust  and  wholesome   speci- 
mens, without  any  marked  peculiarities  and  no  more  divergence 
from  the  normal  standard  than  any  particular  set  of  youngsters 
would  show  from  an  unrealized  average.     As  the  average  age  of 
the  ten  was  8.5  at  the  time  the  examination  was  taken,  I  have 
compared  them  with  eight  and  nine-year-old  children  wherever 
tables  of  measurement  for  normal  children  have  been  available. 


20 


3 
1 

1 

9 

§ 

*l 

40  per  ct. 
Lutheran. 
30  per  ct. 
Catholic. 

d 
d 

70  per  ct. 
Farmers. 
30  per  ct. 
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29 

There  was  no  particular  indication  of  such  a  fact  this  year,  but 
as  a  rule,  the  children  in  my  classes  have  had  very  poor  teeth. 
This  pertains  not  so  much  to  the  eight-year-old  children  as  to 
those  entering  older;  I  think  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule, 
although  by  no  means  invariable,  that  the  children  who  enter  at 
the  prescribed  age  are  more  likely  to  be  of  normal  mental  and 
physical  condition  than  those  who  straggle  in  later ;  this  I  should 
connect  with  the  greater  mentality  of  the  parents.  The  more  in- 
telligent parents  are  more  anxious  to  improve  every  opportunity 
to  educate  their  children.  Very  rapid  and  irregular  pulse,  with  a 
corresponding  heartbeat,  characterized  all  ten  of  these  children.  I 
could  account  for  this  only  upon  the  supposition  that  the  children 
are  always  more  or  less  nervous  in  the  presence  of  a  physician,  al- 
though they  do  not  show  it,  and  that  the  effort  at  self-control  may 
possibly  augment  the  rate  of  circulation. 

The  higher  grade  deaf  all  through  life  are  exceedingly  stoical. 
It  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  necessity  as  well  as  of  principle  with 
them  to  conceal  all  disagreeable  feelings,  to  the  very  limit  of  en- 
durance. 

In  case  of  illness,  the  children  have  to  be  prevailed  upon,  by 
threats  and  entreaties,  to  divulge  their  symptoms. 

A  little  boy  who  broke  out  in  the  school-room  with  scarlet 
fever,  was  asked  if  his  head  ached?  "Oh  yes,  for  three  days;  but 
I  was  patient." H 

The  School  physicians  lay  it  down  as  a  general  rule  that  our 
deaf  children  are  more  liable  to  catarrh  and  all  throat  diseases  than 
the  normal  child.  This  is  not,  of  course,  any  accompaniment  of 
deafness,  but  the  diseased  conditions  which  have  caused  deafness 
have  also  often  caused  tendency  to  inflammation  of  the  mucous  mem- 
branes. 

It  is  to  be  perceived  that  all  of  the  subjects  examined  are 
right-handed;  however,  for  the  first  week,  probably  from  bashful- 


*  I  quote  (without  permission)  a  letter  I  recently  received  from  a  deaf  lady: 
"Mr.  J.  has  been  examining  the  records  and  finds  hardly  any  twelve-year- 
old  boys  :  they  are  all  either  more  or  less.     I  will  send  the  ones  you  want  this 
afternoon.     I  should  go  with  them  only  I  had  the  misfortune  to  fall  and  break 
my  leg  yesterday.     But  they  can  go  alone.     Which  ones  shall  I  send  ?" 


?x 

•HC  A 

I    UNIVERSITY  1 


30 

ness,  the  children  are  all  left-handed.  I  took  great  credit  to  my- 
self for  having  corrected  this  tendency  with  my  first  class.  With 
my  second  class  I  took  no  notice  of  the  bad  habit,  but,  as  before, 
had  an  exclusively  right-handed  class  by  the  third  week. 


SUMMARY  OF  PHYSICAL  EXAMINATIONS. 


The  physical  examination  yields  the  fact  that  so  far  as  ex- 
aminations of  normal  children  eight  years  old  have  been  tabulated, 
the  ten  deaf  children  are  physically  normal  in  all  respects  except 
deafness.  There  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  their  sense  de- 
fect has  interfered  in  any  way  with  their  general  health,  growth, 
size,  or  bodily  development.  The  Feeble-minded  develop  much 
slower  than  normal  youth,  even  when  they  follow  the  ordinary 
lines  of  development.  Many  an  imbecile  of  twenty  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  child  often.  The  Blind  are  often  small  for  their 
years  (from  lack  of  exercise).  The  Deaf  are  fully  up  to  the  nor- 
mal average  and  are  rather  over  than  under  sized.  The  only 
physical  blemishes  to  which  they  seem  particularly  liable  are  poor 
teeth  and  tendency  to  catarrh. 


HOME  CONDITIONS. 


Six  of  the  ten  were  born  deaf;  the  others  became  so  under  the 

ages  of  thirteen  months,  two  from  grip,  and  one  from  scarlet  fever. 

In  no  case  is  any  blood  relationship  between  parents*  reported. 

*  A  certain  percentage  of  the  defectives  in  all  our  institutions  are  the  off- 
spring of  deaf  parents  and  a  certain  percentage  come  from  parents  who  are 
blood  relatives.  It  was  once  assumed  that  this  would  be  true  only  of  the  con- 
genitally  deaf,  but  it  transpires  that  the  tendency  to  become  deaf  through  acci- 
dent is  also  congenital,  that  is,  runs  in  families. 

The  United  States  census  contains  no  figures  upon  the  causes  of  deafness, 
and  only  the  isolated  effort  of  a  few  private  individuals  have  been  directed  to- 
ward collecting  exact  data  upon  this  head.  The  general  impression  prevails 
that  blood  relationship  of  parents  has  a  more  deleterious  effect  upon  the  off- 
spring than  the  actual  existence  of  the  defect  in  the  parent.  Opinions  like 
those  expressed  in  the  appended  cutting  are  commonly  met  with. 

"  Intermarriage  of  blood  relations,  from  the  Royal  Family  to  the  humblest 
individuals,  has  of  late  years  been  a  matter  of  considerable  interest.  With  re- 
gard to  deaf  mutes,  statistics  show,  for  the  most  part,  that  as  the  degree  of  re- 
lation is  between  the  parents,  the  more  numerous  are  the  deaf  mute  children 
born.  For  example,  one  marriage  between  an  aunt  and  nephew  produced 


31 

The  ten  children  have  ten  deaf  brothers  and  sisters,  that  is 
there  are  twenty  deaf  children  in  the  families  from  which  these 
came. 

This  is  rather  remarkable  considering  that  the  subjects  were 
chosen  without  reference  to  cause  or  circumstances  of  deafness. 
But  nine  out  of  the  ten  deaf  brothers  and  sisters  pertain  to  the  con- 
genitally  deaf  cases.  One  family  shows  five  such  children ;  an- 
other three,  with  a  fourth  too  young  for  his  hearing  to  be  made 
sure  of. 

The  nativity  of  parents  is  somewhat  interesting,  50  per  cent 
being  Scandinavian.*  This  simply  means,  that  the  Scandina- 
vians prevail  over  other  foreigners  in  Minnesota.  Illinois  shows  a 
preponderance  of  German  deaf,  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  of 
Irish  and  Italian. 

There  seems  no  doubt,  howrever,  that  the  foreigners  who  deign 
to  find  homes  among  us  are  more  subject  to  sense  defects  as  well 
as  other  afflictions  than  persons  of  American  parentage. 

The  preponderance  of  boys  over  girls  in  this  year's  entering 
class  is  one  maintained  through  all  classes  and  is  present  in  all 
institutions  for  defectives,  boys  being  more  liable  to  sense  defects 
than  girls.f 

eleven  deaf-mutes;  twenty-six  marriages  between  first  cousins  produced  thirty- 
eight  deaf-mutes;  marriages  between  blood  relatives  produced  seventy-two  deaf- 
mutes.  These  are  important  facts,  which  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  influence  of 
the  intermarriage  of  blood  relations  in  causing  deaf-mutism. — Ex. 

The  total  number  of  deaf  pupils  in  our  Institution  whose  parents  are  relat- 
ed is  thirty.  Total  number  of  blind  pupils  in  school  whose  parents  are  related, 
thirteen.  Total  number  of  deaf  pupils  both  of  whose  parents  are  deaf,  five. 
Total  number  of  deaf  pupils  one  of  whose  parents  is  deaf,  three. 

Of  the  total  number  of  pupils  in  our  school,  25  per  cent,  is  the  product  of 
the  intermarriage  of  relatives,  and  5  per  cent,  is  descended  from  parents  one  or 
both  of  whom  are  deaf.  —  Goodson  Gazette,  Virginia." 

This  seems  to  me  an  excessive  statement.  Our  own  Institution  certainly 
furnishes  no  parallel.  The  application  blanks  show  8  per  cent,  of  the  children 
offspring  of  related  parents  ;  only  about  2  per  cent,  offspring  of  deaf  parents. 

*  Five-ninths  of  the  Class,  entering  '99,  are  Scandinavian. 

f  Fifty-one  per  cent  of  our  population  are  males,  and  more  than  fifty-five 
per  cent  of  our  sense-defectives — (Blind  55  -f-  per  cent,  Deaf  55  -(-  per  cent,  and 
Feeble- Minded  55  -|-  per  cent). 

On  the  other  hand  the  Insane  show  a  slight  preponderance  of  the  female 
sex  over  its  due  proportion;  there  are  somewhat  less  than  51  per  cent  of  the 
Insane  cases  who  are  males. 

(United  States  Census — Crime,  Pauperism  and  Benevolence.) 

Our  own  Institution  has  242  inmates;   102  are  girls,  140  are  boys. 


32 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  facts  that  the  child- 
ren all  have  residence  in  country  districts  and  that  their  parents 
are  all  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits  ;  that  nearly  all  are  in  hum- 
ble circumstances  and  30  per  cent,  in  extreme  poverty ;  not  one  is 
of  deaf  parentage.  The  parents  of  all  are  church  members  except 
one  father  who  "  does  not  wish  his  child  to  attend  any  orthodox 
church,"  though  the  mother  is  a  Lutheran. 

The  children  appear  to  have  undergone  few  of  the  ordinary 
diseases  of  childhood,  owing  to  their  isolated  home  life. 

However,  some  one  usually  contrives  to  introduce  measles, 
whooping-cough  and  chicken-pox  during  the  first  year,  if  not  some 
more  serious  complaint,  and  the  health  record  of  the  second  year 
deaf  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  first,  as  well  as  their  im- 
munities. 

In  reply  to  the  query:  "What  useful  work,  if  any,  has  the 
child  performed  at  home  ?  "  the  answers  upon  application  blanks 
are  various.  As  a  rule  the  occupations  mentioned  are  those  which 
the  child  would  engage  in  for  recreation  :  nearly  all  "  tend  baby," 
and  "  tend  chickens."  One  girl  u  likes  to  wash  dishes  and  iron." 
Two  "  make  garden  ;"  one  boy  "  makes  all  his  own  playthings  and 
harnesses  and  unharnesses  the  horse;"  rather  good  for  an  eight- 
year-old. 

SUMMARY  OF  EXAMINATION  INTO  PREVIOUS  HISTORY 
AND  HOME  CONDITIONS. 


The  examination  into  the  home  conditions  and  previous  his- 
tory of  the  ten  average  deaf  children  shows  that  they  came  almost 
exclusively  from  poor  homes;  that  most  of  them  are  of  foreign 
parentage  though  native  Americans  themselves ; 

That  the  ten  have  ten  deaf  brothers  and  sisters ; 

That  all  were  born  deaf  or  became  so  in  infancy; 

That  their  parents  are  not  deaf  nor  related  to  each  other  by 
blood  in  a  single  instance ; 

That  they  are  all  the  offspring  of  religious  parents; 

That  the  children  are  sound,  healthy,  cheerful,  and  whole- 
some; and  would  compare  well  physically  with  any  school  child- 
ren of  their  age. 


PHYSICAL  EXAMINATION  OF   NINE    DEAF   CHILDREN 

WHO  ENTERED  SCHOOL  IN 

SEPTEMBER, 

1899. 


34 


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Comparison    with    Hearing    Eight- Year-Old 

Children. 


I  have  compared  deaf  children  eight  years  of  age  with  as  many 
hearing  children  of  the  same  age  as  my  time  allowed. 

The  comparisons  have  been  confined  to  the  most  obvious 
phases  of  child  life,  as  the  simpler  the  tests,  the  clearer  the  results. 

I  have  chosen  average  deaf  children  from  the  first  year's  class, 
and  in  order  to  give  the  Deaf  no  undue  advantage  in  the  compari- 
son, I  have  taken  the  best  hearing  subjects  I  could  find.  I  think 
I  have  found  at  least  average  hearing  children. 

I  found  the  average  weight  of  the  deaf  children  54.35  pounds, 
or  24.7  kilograms.  J.  A.  Gilbert  (Scripture  Studies  at  Yale,  1892-3) 
gives  the  average  weight  of  New  Haven  children,  eight  years  of  age, 
as  53  Ibs. ;  of  children  nine  years  of  age,  as  60.48  Ibs.* 

Dr.  Gilbert  in  the  same  article  quotes  the  weights  of  Bostonf 
and  Milwaukee^  children  as  52.98  Ibs.  and  52.34  Ibs.  for  eight- 
year-olds  ;  58.15  Ibs.  and  57.95  Ibs.  for  nine-year-olds.  As  I  pre- 
sume all  children  less  than  nine  to  have  been  ranked  as  eight-years 
old  in  these  tables,  I  find  the  deaf  average  fairly  up  to  the  hearing. 

I  should  say  that  these  weights  were  taken  when  the  children 
arrived  in  the  fall ;  they  will  be  taken  again  in  June,  and  an 
astonishing  advance  may  be  predicted,  but  this  would  be  the  case 
with  any  child  at  Boarding  School. 


*Class  of  '99,  weight  59.88  fts.  Although  more  than  half  of  the  chil- 
dren examined  this  year  are  girls  (f )  and  fa  of  last  year  boys,  yet,  '99  averages  a 
little  higher  all  through  the  physical  measurements  than  '98.  This  is  doubtless 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  home  conditions  of  this  year's  class  are  exceptionally 
good.  Only  three  come  from  homes  of  poverty. 

f  Investigated  by  Dr.  Bowditch. 
^Investigated  by  Dr.  Peckham. 


37 

As  regards  height,  I  find  the  deaf  average  48.75  inches.*  or  123 
centimetres.  The  eight-year-old  children  of  New  Haven  average 
48.65  inches  in  height. 

Those  of  Boston,  47.67  inches.  Those  of  Milwaukee,  47.82 
inches.  The  nine-year-old  children  of  New  Haven  average  51.2 
inches.  Those  of  Boston,  49.53  inches.  Those  of  Milwaukee,  49.9 
inches. 

I  find  the  head  circumference  of  the  deaf  children  to  average 
51.8  centimetres  or  20f  inches.")"  I  measured  all  the  eight  and 
nine  year  old  heads  in  Faribault  to  the  number  of  nearly  100,  and 
find  the  average  circumference  also  51.8  centimetres. 

Dr.  Arthur  Macdonald,  specialist  in  the  Bureau  of  Education, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  has  examined  the  school  children  of  Washing- 
ton in  these  respects.J 

He  finds  the  average  height  of  boys  from  81  to  9?  years  of  age, 
49.74  inches;  girls,  49.13. 

(Deaf  boys,  49.88;  deaf  girls,  49.24.  §i.  e.  deaf  children 
8£-9i  years  old). 

He  finds  the  average  weight  of  Washington  boys  from  82  to  9£ 
years  of  age,  56.16  pounds ;  girls,  53.67. 

(Deaf  boys,  59  Ibs.;  deaf  girls,  54.3).|| 

He  finds  the  average  head  circumference  of  Washington  8-year- 
old  boys,  20!  inches;  girls,  201 . 

Deaf  boys,  20A  ;    girls,  201! 

He  finds  the  average  right  hand  grasp  of  Washington  boys 
eight  and  nine  years  of  age,  11.7  kilograms;  Washington  girls  are 
not  given. 

The  Deaf  boys  have  a  grasp  of  13.7  k.  g.  Boys  and  girls  to- 
gether, 11.2  kilograms.** 


*This  year,  52.2  inches. 

fThis  year,  51.65  centimetres — a  trifle  less  than  last  year. 

\ "Experimental  Study  of  Children" — A.  Mcdonald. 

(Washington  Government  Printing  Office,  1899.) 

§This  year,  boys  51.4,  girls  49.3. 

U This  year,  boys  66.7,  girls  54.2. 

^[This  year,  boys  21.03,  girls  20.34. 

**This  year,  boys  I2-J-,  and  boys  and  girls  10.8. 


38 

Dr.  Macdonald  has  collected  the  results  of  some  European  in- 
vestigations. These  show  no  material  divergence  from  his  figures. 

Scandinavian  children  are  as  a  rule  larger  and  stronger  than 
German,  Russian  or  Belgian,  but  slightly  inferior  to  American 
children. 

Some  additional  figures  were  taken  by  Dr.  Landsberger  from 
examination  of  Polish  children.  He  finds  the  chest  circumference 
of  8-year-old  children  to  be  58  centimetres. 

(The  average  chest  circumference  of  the  Deaf  children  is  67.05 
c.  m.)* 

Neck  circumference  of  Polish  children  26  c.  m. 

(Neck  circumference  of  Deaf  children  26.2  c.  m.)t 

Length  of  body  of  Polish  children  117.3  c.  m. 

(Length  of  body  of  Deaf  children  123.)t 

Arm  reach  of  Polish  children  116.9  c.  m. 

(Arm  reach  of  Deaf  children  124.63.)§ 


SPECIAL  NERVE  TESTS. 


I  have  been  unable  to  get  the  normal  figures  in  some  of 
these  special  sense  tests,  and  feel  that  any  figures  I  might  obtain 
from  the  limited  number  of  hearing  children  within  reach  would 
be  untrustworthy. 

No  apparatus  is  employed  beyond  the  reach  of  any  country 
school  teacher,  and  the  experiments  are  stated  in  exact  figures. 

(I  really  extended  all  of  these  tests  to  the  hearing  8-year-old 
children  in  several  school  rooms,  and  found  the  deaf  ahead  in  all 
respects ;  but  further  experiment  might  reverse  the  relation,  and 
I  prefer  not  to  make  any  statement  of  the  comparison.) 

The  Deaf  children  who  entered  '99  as  well  as  '98  are  included 
in  the  sense  tests,  making  19  children. 

*This  year,  65,25. 
fThis  year,  26.5. 
^This  year,  130.5. 
§This  year,  127.7. 


.     39 
RHYTHM. 


My  experiments  on  this  point  consisted  in  setting  a  time  by 
tapping  on  the  floor  with  a  stick  and  asking  the  children  to  march 
to  that  time.  The  tapping  ceased  as  soon  as  the  marching  began. 
With  only  one  exception,  (the  little  Irish  girl  designated  as  num- 
ber one)  all  succeeded  in  getting  the  step  (of  course  I  could  only 
judge  empirically)  and  marched  well  together,  as  well  as  separately. 

I  then  set  a  measure  for  each,  and  asked  him  to  tap  after  me 
in  the  same  time  (for  instance,  two  slow  taps,  i.  e.  each  followed 
b}T  a  long  interval,  then  two  quick  taps,  then  an  interval,  then  three 
quick  taps). 

At  first  the  children  had  great  difficulty  in  following  the  meas- 
ure. I  discovered  that  this  was  caused  by  their  watching  my  mo- 
tions, and  trying  to  reproduce  every  slight  visible  flourish.  When 
I  called  them  very  close,  had  them  shut  their  eyes,  and  then  tap- 
ped on  the  floor  hard  enough  for  them  to  feel  a  slight  shock,  they 
had  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  following  my  little  time  schemes, 
with  the  one  exception  aforementioned  of  No.  One  of  '98:  she 
seemed  quite  lacking  in  the  time  sense.  When  tested  on  her  sense 
of  direction,  she  lost  herself  entirely  and  could  not  regain  her 
bearings  by  running  across  familiar  stationary  objects  in  the  school 
room.  She  only  found  the  object  she  sought  by  falling  over  it,  and 
then  did  not  recognize  it  by  touch.  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
she  was  peculiarly  lacking  in  nerve  co-ordination  or  rythm,  as  many 
persons  are  musics-deaf  when  not  otherwise  deaf,  i.  e.  dull  to  time 
and  pitch  though  not  to  volume  of  sound.  Number  one  is  fairly 
bright,  but  what  is  called  "light-headed."  By  reference  to  the 
record  of  individual  reaction  times  it  will  be  seen  that  hers  are 
considerably  longer  than  those  of  any  other  child.  Probably 
children  are  not  purposely  inattentive  and  "  light  headed." 

The  Deaf  are  good  dancers  and  exceedingly  fond  of  dancing, 
skating  and  other  exercises  depending  upon  rhythmic  motion  for 
their  charm. 

The  boys  in  the  carpenter  shop  and  the  girls  in  the  sewing- 
room,  according  to  empirical  observations,  expend  their  strength 
in  regular  rhythmic  impulses. 


40 

The  girls  learn  to  sign  hymns  in  perfect  concert,  and  the  older 
pupils  become  very  expert  in  handling  clubs  and  dumb-bells. 
From  these  facts  it  would  appear,  that  Rythm  is  apprehended  by 
touch  as  accurately,  if  not  as  readily,  as  by  feeling  and  hearing 
combined,  also  that  the  pleasure  derived  therefrom  is  keen  enough 
to  inspire  prolonged  and  ardent  effort ;  whether  it  be  as  keen  as 
that  enjoyed  by  normal  organizations,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
determine'/ 

I  suppose  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  vital  forces  of 
the  Deaf  are  set  to  rhythmic  issues  as  are  those  of  the  normal  man, 
and  no  more  reason  to  wonder  at  this  fact  than  at  the  rhythmic 
behaviour  of  tides,  stocks,  population,  wheat,  cattle  and  religion. 

At  the  same  time,  as  has  been  already  noted,  their  walk  is  un- 
steady, and  their  pulse  irregular. 


SUMMARY. 


I  found  the  Deaf  at  the  time  of  entering  school  quite  as  apt  in 
marching  to  a  rhythmic  measure  as  little  hearing  children  ;  many 
children  cannot  march  to  music.  I  found  some  of  the  Blind  who 
made  fair  progress  in  studying  music  (though  in  a  mechanical 
way)  quite  unable  to  keep  step  to  a  measure.  Only  one  of  the 
nineteen  deaf  children  was  unable  to  comprehend  and  adopt  a 
rhythmic  motion.  The  Deaf  experience  the  ordinary  pleasure  in 
this.  Little  deaf  children  beguile  their  idle  and  restless  minutes 
quite  as  hearing  children  do,  in  tapping  or  kicking  or  rattling  pen- 
cils in  a  kind  of  measure. 


NERVE  REACTIONS. 


My  only  experiments  in  nerve  reaction  were,  1st,  the  simple 
reaction  time  to  sight  (instead  of  hearing)  of  finger  movement;  2d, 
choice  reaction  time  to  touch  between  the  thumb,  index,  middle 
and  little  finger. 


41 

I.  The  average  simple  reaction  time  as  reported  by  Dr.  Gil- 
bert with  New  Haven  children,  eight  years  of  age,  is  .269  sec. 
(two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  thousandths  of  a  second); 

For  those  nine  years-old  .287  sec.  (two  hundred  and  eighty- 
seven  thousandths  of  a  second); 

The  average  time  of  the  deaf  children,  is  .253  sec.  (two  hun- 
dred and  fifty-three  thousandths  of  a  second); 

II.  The  average  reaction  time  with  discrimination  and  choice 
for  New  Haven  children  eight  years  of  age  is  .488  sec.   (four  hun- 
dred and  eighty-eight  thousandths  of  a  second) ; 

For  those  nine  years-old,  .475  (four  hundred  and  seventy-five 
thousandths  of  a  second); 

For  the  deaf  children  .315  (three  hundred  and  fifteen  thous- 
andths of  a  second). 

I  do  not  suppose  that  the  actual  reaction  time  can  be  less  for 
a  deaf  than  a  hearing  child.  Dr.  Gilbert's  tables  were  derived  from 
examining  one  hundred  subjects. 

It  is  very  possible  that  with  all  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
communication,  I  managed  to  convey  to  a  few  deaf  children's 
minds  a  clearer  idea  of  what  was  wanted  of  them  than  a  stranger 
could  impart  to  a  hundred  hearing  children.  The  difficulties  of 
conveying  any  exact  idea  to  a  child  of  eight  through  artificial  lan- 
guage alone,  is,  I  am  sure,  really  far  greater  than  most  adults  are 
aware  of. 

The  experiments  made  under  Dr.  Scripture's  directions  at 
Yale  indicate  that  not  only  is  the  simple  reaction  time  nearly  nor- 
mal, in  a  man  on  the  verge  of  delirium  tremens,  and  in  a  woman 
in  a  highly  hysterical  condition,  but  that  the  simple  and  even  the 
choice  reaction  time  of  a  dog  is  about  that  of  a  man.* 

It  seems  a  warrantable  influence  that  the  retardation  of  reac- 
tion in  children,  increasing  in  inverse  ratio  to  their  ages,  is,  at  least, 
partly  due  to  lack  of  comprehension. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  simple  reaction  time  is  little  less  with 
the  deaf  than  the  hearing  (only  sixteen  and  thirty-four  thouandths 
of  a  second),  while  the  choice  reaction  time  is  one  hundred  and 


*(I  do  not  know  whether  the  dog  is  compared  with  a  man  of  his  own  age  or 
not.     It  seems  hardly  scientific  to  compare  a  dog  of  ten  with  a  man  of  forty.) 


42 

sixty  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-three  thousandths  less  than 
that  given  as  normal. 

It  is  possible  that  the  making  the  simple  reaction  one  from 
sight  instead  of  hearing  may  have  also  increased  the  minimum 
time. 

Of  course,  the  hearing  apparatus  could  not  be  concerned  in  the 
simple  reaction  :  the  eyes  need  not  be  so,  but  probably  would  be 
in  a  novice. 


SUMMARY. 

So  far  as  observations  have  been  extended,  the  nerve  reaction 
time  is  perfectly  normal  in  deaf  children,  that  is,  a  trifle  shorter 
than  those  recorded  for  hearing  children  of  the  same  age.  The 
little  extra  rapidity  of  reaction  is  probably  due  to  the  greater  ease 
of  explanation  to  a  few  subjects. 


TESTS  OF  VISION. 


The  ordinary  tests  of  vision  were  quite  impracticable  with 
these  children  in  their  languageless  state.  I  accordingly  arranged 
a  test  of  my  own,  which  is  imperfect  in  the  lack  of  a  normal 
standard. 

I  had  some  of  the  words  with  which  the  children  are  familiar 
printed  in  l'Pica  Roman"  type  and  pasted  each  word  on  a  separate 
card. 

I  found  that  this  print  could  be  read  by  most  of  the  deaf  chil- 
dren at  a  distance  of  6.4  feet.  This  was  the  average :  The  ex- 
tremes of  divergence  were  7.5  feet  and  5  feet.  (One  child — num- 
ber five  of  '98 — is  a  little  nearsighted.  He  could  read  only  at  two 
feet  and  his  figure  is  omitted  from  the  average.) 

Prof.  Swift  (State  Normal  School,  Stevens  Point,  Wis.,)  gives 
as  normal  vision,  ability  to  read  type  nine  millimeters  (9  m.  m.) 
square  at  a  distance  of  twenty  feet.  But  Prof.  Swift  found  that 
only  50  per  cent,  of  the  subjects  he  has  examined  (students  of  all 
ages)  have  normal  vision  or  vision  better  than  normal.  Normality 


43 

of  vision  is  oftener  found  in  primary  schools  than  in  advanced 
grades. 

I  applied  this  test  to  my  subjects,  and  found  all  but  one  of  the 
Class  of  '98  normal  plus.  Three  read  the  print,  9  in.  m.  square  at  a 
distance  of  27  feet;  the  one  whose  vision  was  sub-normal  read  it  at 
18  feet.  The  average  was  24  feet.  The  average  of  the  Class  of  '99 
was  27  feet;  five  reached  30  feet ;  only  one  fell  to  21  feet.  No  one 
will  marvel  at  this  perfection  in  eyes  which  have  not  been  injured 
by  early  application.  Script  of  the  same  size,  being  more  familiar, 
was  read  a  little  farther  away. 


PERCEPTION  OF   COLOR. 


For  this  test  I  chose  Bradley's  Kindergarten  in  weaving  mats — 
packages,  numbered  1019  (6?)— 1019  (B)— 1019  (R)— 1019— (0)— 
1019  (P).  (Milton  Bradley  Co.,  Springfield,  Mass). 

These  papers  are  so  universally  known  and  used  as  almost  to 
constitute  a  common  color  standard.  I  selected  the  four  lightest 
tints  from  each  package,  the  colors  being  orange,  blue,  green,  vio- 
let and  red.  I  gave  each  child  one  strip  of  each  of  the  twenty 
mats,  with  the  simple  direction  to  "sort  them."  After  a  minute 
or  two,  I  saw  that  the  lighter  shades  of  orange  and  red,  also  those 
of  blue  and  purple,  were  being  confused,  so  I  removed  the  orange 
and  purple,  leaving  only  red,  blue  and  green. 

Of  the  nineteen  children,  two  mixed  the  colors,  hopelessly. 
The  others  immediately  separated  the  colors  and  placed  them  in 
the  order  of  intensity  save  for  the  following  errors:  three  misplaced 
one  pink  (placed  a  lighter  after  a  darker  pink  instead  of  before); 
four  misplaced  a  green  ;  two  misplaced  two  colors,  i.  e. ;  one  in  each 
of  pink  and  blue  ;  nine  arranged  the  colors  without  error. 

Being  uncertain  as  to  how  far  lack  of  comprehension  might  be 
responsible  for  mistakes,  I  arranged  one  set  in  proper  order,  and 
told  the  childen  to  "copy."  This  they  all  did  without  error.  Then 
the  papers  were  shuffled  and  re-sorted,  without  error,  except  by 
one.* 

*(He  could  copy  the  scheme  but  could  not  carry  it  in  his  mind.  It  is  per- 
haps interesting  to  note  that  this  and  one  other,  the  dullest  in  '98  and  '99,  were 
the  least  sensitive  to  all  nerve  impressions). 


44 
COLOR  OBSERVATION. 


Miss  Ada  Carman  examined  1507  school  children  (of  Saginaw, 
Michigan),  ranging  from  10  to  18  years  of  age.* 

She  reports  that  25  per  cent,  of  these  did  not  know  the  color 
of  their  own  hair  and  50  per  cent,  did  not  know  the  color  of  their 
own  eyes.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  requirements  of  statements 
must  have  been  very  severe,  or  the  children  were  possessed  with 
the  "don't-know  "  fiend,  so  annoying  to  public  school  teachers. 

The  first  year  deaf  do  not  learn  to  write  the  names  of  colors 
until  late  in  the  year,  and  the  children  who  entered  this  fall  have 
not  yet  learned  the  signs  of  colors,  so  they  were  passed  over.  But 
I  put  these  two  questions:  "What  color  of  hair  have  you?"  and 
"  what  color  of  eyes  have  you?"  to  six  classes  of  one,  two  and 
three  years'  standing  in  school.  Of  the  75  children  questioned, 
only  6  had  failed  to  notice  the  color  of  their  own  hair  and  eyes, 
and  to  carry  a  good  concept  of  these  features,  though  they  could 
not  always  describe  them  in  orthodox  phrase. 

A  boy  with  yellow-gray  eyes,  called  them  "almost  yellow." 
One  with  blue  gray  eyes,  said  they  were  "blue  mixed." 
A  third  with  green-gray  eyes,  described  them  as  "  bright,  with 
little  greens." 

Sandy  hair  was  denominated  as  "some  yellow-white-brown." 
I  accepted  all  these  definitions  as  correct,  that  is,  good  evi- 
dence of  self-observation. 


SENSE  OF  TASTE. 


In  this  test,  again,  I  am  without  normal  data;  but  I  tested  the 
four  gustatory  perceptions,  sweet,  salt,  sour  and  bitter,  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner : 

I.  I  allowed  a  level  teaspoonful  of  sugar  to  dissolve  in  half  a 
gill  of  water. 

II.  A  level  teaspoonful  of  salt  in  half  a  gill  of  water. 

*  MacDonald's  Compilation,  (p  1114). 


45 

III.  I  dropped  phosphoric  acid  (iV)  into  half  a  gill  of  water, 
until  "sour"  could  be  perceived  ;  and 

IV.  Nux  Vomica  (iV)  into  half  a  gill  of  water,  until  "  bitter" 
could  be  perceived. 

Both  classes,  '98  and  '99,  were  tested  on  this. 


I.  With  very  slight  divergence,  30  drops  of  the  sweet  mix- 
ture, dropped  into  half  a  gill  of  water,  gave  the  taste  of  sweet.     The 
extremes  were  27  drops  and  35  drops.     30  was  the  average. 

II.  Not  one  of  the  children  could  detect  "salt"  when  two 
drops  of  the  salt  mixture  were  diluted  with  two  teaspoonfuls  of 
water;  most  of  the  nineteen  recognized  "salt"  from  three  drops; 
all  were  sure  of  it,  at  four  drops. 

III.  The  sign  "sour  lemon"  was  invariably  given  upon  tast- 
ing 40  drops  of  phosphoric  acid  (A)  in  4  gill  of  water.     All  of  the 
girls  but  one  detected  this  at  35  drops;  four  of  them  were  sure  of 
"sour1'  at  30  drops. 

IV.  The  bitter  test  had  to  be  abandoned  because  the  children 
have  no  sign  for  u  bitter,"  and  apparently  no  comprehension  of  the 
taste. 


ATHLETIC  TESTS. 


A  physical  comparison  of  deaf  and  hearing  children  would  be 
meaningless  without  some  test  of  their  comparative  available  ac- 
tivity. As  no  formula  of  ordinary  child  capability  have  been 
made,  and  as  apparatus  was  lacking  for  muscular  tests,  I  fell  back 
upon  contests  between  my  ten  deaf  boys  and  picked  hearing  boys 
of  the  same  age. 

The  tests  were,  I  am  aware,  somewhat  unscientific,  but  per- 
haps, serve  the  purpose  of  general  comparison  better  than  as  though 
I  had  been  confined  to  the  use  of  apparatus  without  the  spirit  of 
contest. 

Owing  also  to  the  loose  nature  of  the  tests,  I  am  obliged  to 
state  results  generally,  rather  than  in  exact  terms.  I  do  not  feel, 


46 

however,  that  this  vagueness  vitiates  the  results,  for  repeated  trials 
yielded  the  same  general  outcome,  and  I  may  say  for  them,  that 
they  have  considerably  altered  my  own  previous  opinions,  formed 
without  due  foundation. 

I  had  imagined  from  the  robust  appearance  of  deaf  boys,  that 
they  would  prove  more  than  a  match,  physically,  for  hearing  hoys 
of  the  same  age,  whereas  I  had  not  the  least  expectation  that  the 
latter  would  be  worsted  in  memory  tests,  particularly  word  memo- 
ry. The  tests  in  manual  dexterity  eventuated  in  accordance  with 
my  expectations. 

I  first  tested  accuracy  of  taste  and  sense  of  direction,  before 
beginning  the  athletic  contests,  which  included  running,  jumping, 
pushing,  pulling,  throwing  a  weight,  and  throwing  at  a  mark. 

The  tests  were  conducted  as  follows : 

The  twenty  boys  were  blindfolded  and  held  their  own  noses ; 
each  received  upon  his  tongue  in  succession,  a  piece  of  soft  white 
bread,  part  of  the  white  and  the  yolk  of  an  egg,  a  piece  of  cold  po- 
tato, a  piece  of  cheese  and  a  piece  of  fresh  fish.  The  score  stood  as 
follows : 

Two  failures  on  the  part  of  the  deaf  to  distinguish  white  of 
egg,  and  one,  yolk. 

Three  failures  on  the  part  of  the  hearing  to  distinguish  white 
of  egg,  one,  yolk  and  one,  potato. 

2.  Next  the  children  were  taken  to  a  dark  cellar  full  of  pit- 
falls (these  were  guarded,  but  they  did  not  know  it). 

Each  saw  an  egg  placed  in  a  jar  at  as  great  a  distance  from 
his  position  as  the  limits  of  the  room  allowed.  He  was  then  blind- 
folded and  turned  around  several  times  to  confuse  him ;  then  he 
set  out  in  search  of  his  egg. 

Every  one  found  his  egg,  and  only  five,  two  deaf  and  three 
hearing,  showed  any  uncertainty  as  to  their  direction. 

Two,  both  deaf,  walked  directly  toward  the  object,  and  found 
it  without  making  a  false  step. 

These  results  surprised  me,  somewhat,  as  I  had  expected  the 
deaf  to  be  more  confused  than  the  hearing. 

3.  The  running  test  followed,  in  which  the  deaf  were  hope- 
lessly out-distanced.     It  may  be  that  no  amount  of  training  could 


47 

make  really  good  runners  of  the  deaf,  but  in  these  boys  I  particu- 
larly noticed  the  lack  of  racing  feeling,  if  I  ma}7  so  speak. 

The  boys  traversed  a  bridge  150  feet  long,  picked  up  an  orange, 
(this  to  ensure  fairness  at  the  turning  point)  and  returned  to  the 
start. 

The  deaf  made  a  good  showing  until  they  reached  the  oranges, 
but  always  slacked  up  then,  and  returned  at  a  jog  trot;  while  the 
hearing  boys,  urged  on  by  the  shouts  of  their  comrades,  redoubled 
their  efforts  on  the  home  trip. 

Separate  races  yielded  the  same  result  as  the  race  en  masse ; 
the  hearing  were  always  a  little  in  advance  and  sometimes  a  long 
way.  Only  one  of  the  races  was  won  by  a  deaf  boy,  i.  e. :  The 
fastest  deaf  runner  defeated  the  fastest  hearing  runner. 

4.  A  "tug  of  war"  resulted  in  a  decided  triumph  of  the  ten 
deaf  boys  over  the  ten  hearing ;  the  same  result  attended  the  push- 
ing contest ;  in  other  words,  the  deaf  boys  were  heavier  than  the 
hearing  boys  of  the  same  age,  and  stronger  than  the  hearing  boys 
of  the  same  weight. 

These  pulling  and  pushing  tests  were  taken  en  masse  and 
seriatim  with  the  same  unvarying  outcome ;  that  is,  the  deaf  boys 
pulled  a  long  rope  with  the  hearing  boys  struggling  at  the  outer 
end  of  it  quite  across  the  room,  and  pushed  the  same  line  of 
hearing  boys  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  room,  as  many  times  as  the 
feats  were  attempted. 

The  individual  deaf  boys  handled  their  individual  opponents 
(when  matched  by  weight  and  height)  as  easily. 

5.  The  boys  then  threw  a  weight  as  far  as  possible  (the  dis- 
tance thrown  being  the  desideratum);  there  was  no  apparent  dif- 
ference in  the  success  of  the  deaf  and  the  hearing ;  rather,  height 
and  weight  proved  the  touchstones. 

When  all  took  their  places  on  their  own  markers,  the  tallest 
of  the  twenty  boys,  (a  hearing  boy)  occupied  the  farthest  point, 
next  five  nine-year  olds  (two  deaf  and  three  hearing)  stood,  al- 
most in  a  line,  at  right  angles  to  the  line  traversed  by  the  weight; 
next,  four  deaf  boys  ;  then  two  hearing;  then  three  hearing  and 
two  deaf;  last,  two  deaf  and  one  hearing,  all  standing  nearly  in 
the  order  of  height,  like  a  flight  of  stairs. 

6.  Throwing  at  a  mark  was  an  easy  victory  for  the  hearing 


48 

boys :  Three  of  the  nine  struck  the  target,  while  not  one  of  the 
deaf  came  near  it,  except  the  boy  who  won  the  race. 

This  boy,  by  the  by,  has  the  inestimable  advantage  to  a  deaf 
child  of  a  deaf  brother  and  a  deaf  sister.  As  he  has  had  playfel- 
lows all  his  life  on  terms  of  equality  with  himself,  he  is  by  this 
much  more  like  a  hearing  child.  (That  is,  knows  better  how  to 
play.) 

7.  The  jumping  contest  (standing  long  jump)  was  about  even : 
The  farthest  point  was  reached  by  the  tallest  hearing  boy,  but 
after  him  came  three  deaf  boys  before  a  second  hearing  boy  inter- 
vened on  the  line  of  markers. 


SUMMARY. 


The  games  instituted  to  judge  of  the  available  physical  activ- 
ity of  the  Deaf  and  Hearing  at  eight  years  of  age  consisted  of 

1.  Running. 

2.  Jumping. 

3.  Pushing. 

4.  Pulling. 

5.  Throwing  a  weight. 

6.  Throwing  at  a  mark. 

The  Hearing  were  far  superior  in  tests  1  and  6. 

The  Deaf  showed  marked  superiority  in  3  and  4. 

The  two  sets  were  about  equal  in  2  and  5. 

The  exercises  which  called  for  mere  strength  showed  the  Deaf 
to  be  stronger. 

Those  which  called  for  strength  and  agility,  showed  a  gain  on 
the  part  of  the  Hearing. 

Those  which  called  for  skill  developed  in  childish  sports  show- 
ed great  superiority  on  the  part  of  the  Hearing. 

The  results  of  this  contest  between  deaf  and  hearing  children 
led  me  to  duplicate  the  tests  with  a  group  of  picked  deaf  boys, 
twelve  years  of  age,  and  an  equal  number  of  hearing  boys  of  the 
same  age. 


49 

My  object  in  the  second  test  was  to  note  the  advantage  of 
play-fellowship  in  developing  the  latent  capabilities  of  the  deaf, 
but  no  such  advantage  became  apparent,  the  results  being  substan- 
tially the  same  as  with  the  younger  children. 

The  pulling,  pushing,  running  and  throwing  contests  resulted 
almost  precisely  as  they  had  done  previously :  the  deaf  had  gained 
somewhat  in  running,  though  still  easily  beaten :  the  hearing  had 
gained  in  pushing  and  pulling,  but  were  still  out  pushed  and  out- 
pulled. 

Schoolboy  games  of  skill  had  given  the  hearing  twelve-year- 
olds  an  added  accuracy  of  aim  in  shooting  marbles,  throwing  and 
catching  a  ball,  etc.,  while  the  fifth  year  deaf  boys  were  not  much 
superior  to  the  new  comers. 

The  sense  of  direction  was  still  further  tested  by  requiring  each 
boy  to  walk  to  a  given  spot,  blindfolded,  and  to  carry  a  small  block 
on  his  head.  When  the  block  slipped  to  one  side  a  trifle,  the  bearer 
turned  in  that  direction,  as  though  the  slight  extra  impulse  led 
him  to  walk  in  a  circle.  As  before,  the  deaf  boys  kept  their  sense 
of  direction  as  well  as  the  hearing,  but  did  not  steady  their  weight 
as  well.  Three  dropped  off  the  block  and  one  could  not  take 
three  steps  without  losing  it,  though  we  gave  him  three  trials. 

It  is  proverbial  that  the  deaf  walk  unsteadily  after  dark,  but  it 
would  seem  that  the  unsteadiness  is  not  necessarily  accompanied 
by  any  failure  of  the  sense  of  locality. 

I  may,  perhaps,  properly  mention,  here,  two  or  three  observa- 
tions upon  matters  not  included  in  the  program  of  sports,  which 
seemed  to  me  not  without  significance.  They  pertain  equally  to 
children  of  both  ages. 

First.  In  order  to  ensure  equality  of  conditions,  I  prescribed 
a  certain  position  to  be  assumed  by  all  alike  in  each  test. 

All  of  the  hearing  boys  (except  the  one  selected  to  recommend 
a  position)  immediately  objected  to  it  as  "no  good,"  and  required 
repeated  reminders  before  deigning  to  assume  it. 

The  deaf,  without  exception,  merely  from  the  first  general  di- 
rection, took  the  attitude  with  scrupulous  accuracy. 

Second.  The  spirit  of  combat,  the  interest  in  the  game,  as  a 
game,  was  much  greater  on  the  part  of  the  hearing;  their  deter- 


50 

mination  to  win  was  much  stronger;  their  dissatisfaction  over  de- 
feat more  evident. 

The  deaf  always  asked  me  if  they  had  "done  it  right,"  and 
rested  satisfied  with  my  assurance  that  they  had,  not  troubling 
themselves  with  the  fact  that  their  competitors  had  done  better. 

Finally,  as  the  children  departed  from  the  scene  of  their  con- 
tests, each  deaf  boy  shook  hands,  wished  me  "good  afternoon, "and 
thanked  me  for  a  "pleasant  time;"  shyness  or  thoughtlessness 
caused  the  hearing  boys  to  dispense  with  these  courtesies. 

If  Lam  at  liberty  to  draw  any  generalizations  from  these  tests, 
they  are  as  follows  :  . 

Whereas,  hearing  children  through  constant  attention  to  boy- 
ish sports  have  strongly  developed  the  spirit  of  rivalry,  so  impor- 
tant all  through  life,  their  eternal  practice  in  playing  has  also  given 
them  a  skill  in  judging  distances  and  direction,  an  accuracy  of  aim, 
steadiness  of  hand  and  a  strength  and  agility  of  limb,  which  no 
amount  of  set  instruction  in  gymnastics  could  ever  convey. 

The  deaf,  on  the  other  hand,  inferior  in  all  these  respects,  have 
more  self-control,  more  discipline,  more  concentration  of  purpose. 
They  do  not  play  as  well  as  hearing  children,  but  work  better,  and 
require  less  incentive  to  effort,  other  than  the  wish  of  a  superior. 

Their  sense  of  duty,  obedience  and  courtesy,  becomes  early 
and  strongly  developed. 

I  think  the  younger  children  in  a  deaf  institution  do  little 
real,  earnest  playing,  possibly  because  their  well  ordered  lives,  full 
day,  and  industrial  training,  leave  them  more  inclined  for  rest  than 
recreation  in  their  leisure  moments. 

I  think  no  one  will  question  that  this  is  to  be  regretted,  and 
the  practical  outcome  of  this  paper  will  be  that  at  least  one  teach- 
er of  little  deaf  children  will  make  a  determined  effort  to  turn  their 
attention  to  actual  school-boy  sports,  something  more  artificial 
than  mere  rough-and-tumble.* 


*  The  only  real  game  which  I  have  noticed  as  invented  by  the  younger  deaf 
boys  is  conducted  as  follows:  Some  plucky  boy,  the  champion  of  his  size,  throws 
himself  flat  on  the  ground  and  challenges  his  playfellows  to  crush  him  ("flatten" 
him).  One  after  another  the  other  boys  stretch  themselves  on  his  length  as  long 
as  the  pile  will  stand.  The  real  game  arranges  for  monitors  to  guard  the  pile 
and  hold  it  in  position  until  it  extends  above  the  head  of  the  tallest ;  but  as  an 
actual  fact,  a  squabble  always  breaks  out  in  the  writhing  mass,  before  it  reach- 


51 

That  their  awkwardness  in  sport  results  from  lack  of  practice 
rather  than  natural  inaptitude,  is  evidenced  by  the  skill  in  gym- 
nastics and  athletic  sports  attained  by  the  older  deaf  boys,  when 
they  religiously  set  themselves  at  practice. 

The  deaf  football  team  and  the  baseball  nine  have  defeated 
the  Faribault  High  School  ditto  and  the  athletes  of  Seabury 
Divinity  School. 

The  students  of  the  National  Deaf-mute  College  at  Washing- 
ton have  won  the  championship  of  the  Maryland  and  District  of 
Columbia  College  football  league  for  the  past  two  years,  with  but 
sixty  students  to  draw  from. 


SUMMARY. 


The  athletic  sports  extended  to  twelve-year-old  boys,  both  deaf 
and  hearing,  resulted  very  much  as  did  those  with  the  younger 
children :  The  deaf  still  excelled  in  pushing  and  pulling,  i.  e.  ex- 
penditure of  mere  brute  strength,  but  had  gained  little  skill  in  the 
output  of  their  animal  spirits. 

The  ordinary  twelve-year-old  boy  is  absorbed  in  play,  gives 
the  best  hours  of  the  twenty-four  to  the  exercise  of  his  senses  and 
his  muscles  in  competitive  games,  and  has  gained  a  specialized  use 
of  his  limbs. 


es  these  dimensions.  That  this  sport  has  never  yet  proved  fatal  to  the  under- 
pinning is  a  matter  of  marvel  to  every  adult  who  has  ever  witnessed  it. 

It  has  never,  that  I  am  aware,  reached  a  legitimate  climax,  for  some  grown 
person  is  sure  to  discover  its  progress,  rush  in,  overturn  the  struggling,  howl- 
ing heap,  and  drag  out  the  exhausted  hero  from  beneath.  But  before  he  has 
regained  his  natural  color  he  is  ready  to  renew  his  challenge. 

From  witnessing  this  exercise,  and  similar  sports  among  hearing  boys,  I 
am  quite  convinced  that  little  boys  enjoy  being  hurt  and  recognize  no  fun  which 
does  not  involve  the  certainty  of  pain.  Older  boys  enjoy  the  risk  of  pain,  and 
the  disinclination  to  take  this  risk  in  sport  is,  I  think,  a  sign  of  maturity.  (I 
suppose  Athletes  would  call  it  a  sign  of  decrepitude). 

A  heroic  game  among  the  blind  is  for  two  boys  to  provide  themselves  with 
a  quantity  of  stones,  stand  a  short  distance  apart  and  call  to  each  other  ;  then 
each  hurls  a  stone  in  the  direction  of  his  adversary's  voice.  The  one  who  first 
draws  blood  is  the  victor,  or,  it  may  be  the  one  who  first  hits  the  other,  or  hits 
him  a  certain  number  of  times.  Terms  differ. 


52 

Lack  of  practice  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  inferiority  of  the 
deaf,  but  lack  of  competitive  ambition  is  also  chargeable  with  their 
clumsiness. 

The  deaf  child's  life  is  more  industrial  than  the  normal  child's ; 
he  does  not  know  how  to  play  and  likes  to  work.  He  is  kept 
steadily  at  work  and  in  hours  of  leisure  is  inclined  to  rest.  Yet 
this  lack  of  practice  has  not  resulted  in  a  weakening  of  the  tissues 
nor  a  stunting  of  the  size.  The  strength  of  the  deaf  boy  at  twelve 
years  of  age  is  simply  waiting  to  be  used.  And  if  ambition  and 
competition  are  aroused  in  the  older  boys  (by  teachers  who  have 
been  themselves  college  athletes)  these  still  are  capable  of  learning 
how  to  play. 


DEFTNESS. 


The  tests  in  manual  dexterity  were  sufficiently  simple  to  ad- 
mit of  exact  marking. 

Test  number  I  consisted  of  stringing  a  set  of  Kindergarten 
beads  in  a  prescribed  order  of  the  six  colors.  The  beads  were 
placed  belter  skelter  in  a  small  tin  box  from  which  each  was  taken 
separately. 

The  average  time  occupied  by  the  deaf  eight-year-old  children 
for  this  test  was  3.4  minutes  ;  that  of  the  hearing,  7.1  minutes. 

The  same  test  extended  to  the  seven  deaf  boys  twelve  years  of 
age,  showed  the  average  time  occupied  2.2  minutes. 

Seven  hearing  boys  selected  as  most  promising  by  their  teach- 
er from  a  sixth  grade  school-room  occupied  an  average  time  of  2.1 
minutes. 

Test  number  II  consisted  in  piling  a  set  of  fifty-five  dominoes 
in  five  columns,  eleven  in  each,  and  returning  them  in  order  to  the 
box. 

The  average  time  occupied  by  the  deaf  (eight-year-olds)  was 
4.3  minutes;  by  the  hearing,  6.9  minutes. 

The  same  test  extended  to  the  twelve-year-olds  gave  an  aver- 
age of  3.4  minutes  to  the  deaf  and  the  same  (3.4)  to  the  hearing. 


53       - 

It  will  be  seen  that  although  both  deaf  and  hearing  have 
gained  in  dexterity  in  four  years  of  school  life,  the  hearing  have 
gained  far  more  than  the  deaf. 

This  is  somewhat  surprising,  since  the  deaf  use  their  fingers 
almost  constantly  about  their  school  work :  at  the  same  time  all 
of  the  hearing  boys  had  actually  handled  dominoes  in  games, 
while  most  of  the  deaf  had  done  so  very  rarely  if  at  all. 

Test  number  III  consisted  in  sorting  in  order  of  size  a  set  of 
very  small  buttons,  very  nearly  the  same  in  diameter,  no  two  be- 
ing precisely  the  same. 

The  average  time  occupied  by  the  younger  deaf  children  for 
this  test  was  25  seconds,  and  by  the  hearing,  30  seconds :  more- 
over, three  hearing  children  out  of  ten  failed  to  place  the  buttons 
in  the  proper  order. 

The  deaf  made  no  mistakes  as  to  size. 

This  test  was  not  given  to  the  older  children. 

In  addition,  the  boys  twelve  years  of  age  were  required  to  turn 
the  pages  of  a  blank  book  and  write  their  own  initials  upon  each 
page :  the  average  time  occupied  by  the  deaf  was  44.2  seconds  ;  by 
the  hearing  46.4  seconds. 

The  fourth  test  for  the  older  boys  was  sewing  ten  buttons  on  a 
strip  of  cloth,  two  stitches  to  a  button. 

The  average  time  occupied  by  the  deaf  was  5.3  minutes ;  by 
the  hearing,  7.3  minutes. 

Lest  it  be  imagined  that  the  chances  here  would  be  in  favor  of 
Institution-bred  children,  I  may  state  that  not  one  of  the  deaf  boys 
chosen  had  ever  sewed  on  a  button  before,  while  three  of  the  hear- 
ing boys  claimed  to  have  done  a  large  share  of  their  family  sewing. 


SUMMARY. 


The  tests  in  Manual  Dexterity  were,  all  in  all,  and  separately, 
in  favor  of  the  deaf.  The  little  deaf  children  were  ahead  of  the 
little  hearing  children  in  every  instance  in  point  of  rapidity,  and 
excelled  them  as  much  in  point  of  accuracy. 

In  the  tests  with  the  twelve-year-old  children,  the  deaf  were 


54 

still  generally  ahead  (actually  so  in  every  instance  but  one)  but 
the  discrepancy  was  not  nearly  as  marked  as  with  the  younger 
children.  Whereas  the  hearing  boys  of  twelve  were  quicker  than 
those  of  eight,  they  were  also  more  accurate;  the  deaf  boys  of 
twelve  were  also  quicker  than  the  younger  ones,  but  could  hardly 
be  more  accurate.  In  fact,  no  human  efforts  can  excel  the  careful 
and  painstaking  attention  to  detail  of  these  little  untaught  deaf 
children.  Their  constant  fidelity  to  the  one  means  of  information 
open  to  them  is  pathetic  in  its  patient  unchildishness.  I  should  not 
say  that  they  lose  this  attentiveness  as  they  grow  older,  but  gain 
rather  in  concentration  than  observation. 


OBSERVATION  AND  MEMORY. 


Finally,  I  took  tests  in  observation  and  memory. 

The  results  showed  that  the  trial  was  too  simple  to  show  the 
comparative  ability  of  deaf  and  hearing,  since  the  memory  of  the 
former  should  have  been  strained  to  the  breaking  point. 

Test  No.  I  consisted  in  placing  ten  small  objects  upon  a  table, 
leading  each  child  past  separately,  telling  him  to  note  all  the  ob- 
jects, then  sending  him  to  another  room  to  write  the  names  of  all 
the  objects  he  remembered. 

The  average  number  of  objects  noted  by  the  deaf  was  9.07 ; 
that  is,  each  child  remembered  every  object,  except  that  one  forgot 
one  and  another  two. 

The  average  number  written  by  the  hearing  was  five  and  nine- 
tenths. 

Test  No.  II  was  more  difficult  in  that  the  ten  objects  were 
hung  on  a  bangle  board,  exposed  about  a  quarter  of  a  minute  to 
the  whole  school,  then  covered. 

In  this  test  the  deaf  children  reached  an  average  of  9.99;  the 
hearing,  an  average  of  6.6;  (nine  and  nine-tenths;  six  and  six- 
tenths). 

I  gave  the  same  test  to  two  oral  classes,  the  first  year  and  the 
second  year,  both  containing  sixteen  children  of  the  required  ages. 


55 

The  average  number  of  words  handed  in  was  8.6  (eight  and  six- 
tenths).* 

Test  number  III  consisted  of  three  short  and  arbitrary  collec- 
tions of  letters  presented  to  the  children,  then  removed  and  called 
for  the  next  day. 

The  average  attained  by  the  deaf  was  ten  (10);  that  by  the 
hearing,  4.2. 

Of  course,  all  words  learned  by  the  deaf  are,  in  fact,  arbitrary 
collections  of  letters,  since  they  never  learn  the  laws  by  which 
sounds  are  combined  into  speech  and  represented  in  spelling. 
But  this  arbitrary  letter  memory  could  hardly  be  extensively  de- 
veloped during  the  first  year  of  school  life;  hence  the  peculiar  sig- 
nificance of  these  memory  tests. 

The  twelve  year  old  boys  had  ten  words  uncovered  before 
them,  were  allowed  to  study  them  one  minute,  then  the  words 
were  erased  and  reproduced. 

This  exercise  was  presented  to  a  fifth  year  deaf  class  and  a 
fifth  year  hearing  class,  also  a  sixth  year  hearing  class. 

This  gave  ten  deaf  children  of  the  proper  age  and  seventy- 
eight  hearing  children ;  twelve  years  of  age. 

The  words  were : 

"  Rhinoceros. 

Schoolhouse. 

Running. 

Anxious. 

Miserable. 

Angel. 

Happy. 

Fog. 

Bridge. 

Snow-bank." 


*(It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  lower  average  attained  by  the  oral  pu- 
pils reflects  either  upon  their  natural  intellect  nor  upon  the  methods  employed 
in  their  instruction  ;  but,  no  doubt,  their  efforts,  both  at  home  and  at  school,  to 
read  the  lips  of  their  hearing  associates  has  subtracted  just  so  much  from  their 
observation  of  things  about  them.  At  any  rate  they  are  not  to  be  regarded  as 
normal  deaf  children.} 


56 

The  average  written  by  the  deaf  was  ten  (10);  by  the  hearing, 
8.7.  Not  quite  50  per  cent,  of  the  hearing  obtained  ten.  Not  one 
of  these  tests  had  ever  been  tried  before  with  either  deaf  or  hearing 
classes. 

I  also  signed  ten  words  in  rapid  succession  (detached  words) 
and  asked  the  first  year  class  to  sign  them  after  me.  The  average 
correctness  was  ten  on  a  scale  of  ten. 

When  the  same  words  were  spoken  to  a  hearing  class,  the  aver- 
age number  reproduced  was  6.4  (six  and  four-tenths.) 


57 


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58 

Tests  similar  to  IV  and  V,  for  eight-year-old  children  were 
taken  with  second  year  classes  of  deaf  children  nine  and  ten  years 
old. 

Out  of  sixteen  (16)  second  year  children  (supposed  to  be  nine 
and  ten  years  old,  though  some  of  them  are  older) : 

Fifteen  (15)  remembered  ten  of  the  objects  ;  one  remembered 
only  nine. 

Average,  9.99. 

The  same  test  with  the  second  year  oral  class  resulted  in  but 
three  perfect  papers  out  of  twelve  papers  handed  in,  i.  e. : 

3  remembered  the  ten  objects. 

4  u  "   nine    " 
4          "  "   eight  " 
1          "               "   seven   " 

Average,  8.7+ 

The  first  year  oral  class  has  four  8-year-olds. 

One  remembered  seven  objects;  one,  eight,  and  two,  nine. 

Average  of  both  classes,  8.6. 


TESTS  IV  AND  V  FOR  HEARING  EIGHT- YEAR-OLDS. 


A  second  test  like  IV  and  V  was  tried  with  another  eight-year- 
old  hearing  class;  one  composed  largely  of  Americans  and  Scandi- 
navians. 

Out  of  a  class  of  thirty  children  eight  and  nine  years  old  in 
their  second  year  at  school  (some  in  the  third  year) : 
2  remembered  the  ten  objects. 

2  "  "   nine     " 
4          «               "   eight  " 

7  "  "  seven   " 

8  "  "   six       " 

3  "  .  "   five      " 

4  "  «   four     " 
Average,  6.6. 


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60 
TEST  V  FOR  HEARING  TWELVE- YEAR-OLDS. 


The  words  given  were  :  1.  Rhinoceros  ;  2.  Angel ;  3.  School- 
house  ;  4.  Happy  ;  5.  Running ;  6.  Fog ;  7.  Anxious ;  8.  Bridge ; 
9.  miserable ;  10.  Snow-bank. 

Out  of  the  78  pupils  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  grades,  tested,  33 
(not  quite  50  per  cent)  remembered  the  ten  words. 
33  remembered  ten. 
16  "          nine. 

16  "          eight. 

8  "         seven. 

3  "          six. 

1  "          five. 

1  "         four. 

Average  8.7+. 

The  words  were  exposed  to  view  one  minute  by  the  teacher, 
then  erased  and  written  immediately  upon  slips  of  paper.  (All  of 
these  slips  are,  of  course,  preserved.) 


SUMMARY. 


In  the  tests  in  observation  and  memory,  both  of  objects  and  of 
words,  both  with  eight-year-old  and  twelve-year-old  children,  but 
one  result  is  apparent,  the  unquestionable  superiority  of  the  deaf. 
The  excellent  spelling  of  the  deaf  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
hearing  is  also  significant.  We  now  perceive  in  what  direction 
the  education  of  the  deaf  has  been  going  on,  while  hearing  boys 
are  learning  to  run,  throw,  jump  and  climb.  The  former  have 
been  learning  to  work  in  harness  while  the  latter  have  been  learn- 
ing independence  of  the  whole  adult  world. 


School  Work  of  the  First  Year. 


The  first  year's  school  work  is  primarily  and  all  through,  lan- 
guage drill. 

All  exercises  upon  any  subject  have  the  invariable  end  in  view 
of  inculcating  the  English  language. 

The  difficulties  are  mountainous. 

I.  In  the  first  place  the  idea  is  to  be  instilled  into  the  blank 
little  minds  that  words  represent  things. 

The  newcomers  are  utterly  languageless.  The  natural  sign 
language  with  which  alone  they  are  equipped  is  meagre  beyond 
belief,  consisting  mostly  in  pointing,  counting  on  the  fingers  and  a 
few  descriptive  signs  made  by  outlining  objects  in  air. 

I  have  only  found  two  or  three  instances  of  artificial  signs 
used  in  a  general  sense  by  little  deaf  children. 

However,  I  imagine  there  is  a  field  for  study  in  the  original 
languages  of  the  untaught  deaf.  It  is  probably  shyness  and  be- 
wilderment which  checks  the  use  of  these  individual  schemes  in  a 
strange  place.* 

But  at  any  rate  it  is  only  natural  and  descriptive  gestures  and 
these  apparently  quite  unfamiliar,  which  can  be  used  with  a  be- 
ginning deaf  class,  and  the  idea  of  written  language  is  something 
utterly  unknown  to  the  children. 

II.  After  they  imbibe  the  idea  that  words,  written  and  spelled, 


*  Letters  of  inquiry  sent  to  the  parents  of  the  class  entering  this  fall  and 
personal  inquiries  where  these  were  possible,  elicited  the  information  that  many 
such  signs  are  used  at  home,  signs  really  artificial,  not  imitative  or  descriptive. 
The  parents  of  children  who  enter  under  the  age  of  ten  make  meagre  re- 
ports of  original  signs,  but  the  children  from  ten  to  fourteen  have  originated  a 
good  many,  and  those  who  enter  as  adults  seem  to  have  really  framed  for  them- 
selves and  their  family,  a  rude  sign  language.  The  application  blank  of  a  boy 
of  eighteen  answers  the  query:  "How  do  you  communicate  with  him?" 
"By  signs.  He  thought  them  himself."  And  this  boy  really  expresses  ideas  of 
some  degree  of  abstraction  by  his  own  improvised  signs. 


62 

stand  for  things,  attention  is  devoted  for  some  weeks  to  teaching  a 
certain  number  of  words. 

This  is  slow  work,  at  first,  but  is  so  facilitated  by  practice  and 
growing  interest,  that  the  number  which  could  be  taught  a  bright 
child  in  the  first  year  or  two  (while  the  zest  of  learning  is  still 
keen)  is,  I  think,  almost  unlimited. 

But  the  great  bugbear  of  the  deaf-mute,  viz.,  language  con- 
struction, confronts  him  immediately,  and  very  little  time  is  devot- 
ed to  the  actual  memorizing  of  words.  After  a  little,  the  words 
come  of  themselves,  and  arrange  themselves  in  the  most  unintel- 
ligible combinations  to  be  conceived.* 

When  about  twenty  names  of  objects  (always  things  which  can 
be  produced  and  handled)  have  been  taught,  the  children  are 
taught  their  own  names  and  those  of  their  class-mates. 

(During  the  year  the  children  actually  learn  out  of  school 
hours  the  names  of  nearly  every  one  about  the  Institution.  The 
excitement  of  wandering  about  the  house  and  grounds,  asking  each 
passerby  if  he  has  a  name  and  what  it  is,  furnishes  ample  social 
dissipation  for  the  first  year  children.  It  is  their  first  story  book, 
as  captivating  as  Robinson  Crusoe. 

III.  Sentence  building  is  then  begun  in  its  simplest  form,  the 
combination  of  a  proper  name  and  an  intransitive  verb.  The  verb 
must  be  one  which  can  represent  an  actual  action  performed  be- 
fore the  pupil's  eyes. 

Incredible  as  it  may  appear,  there  are  but  about  thirty  good 
intransitive  verbs  in  the  English  language  suitable  for  use  in  a 
small  room,  and  some  of  these  must  be  used  fictitiously  (such  as 
"  skate,  "  "  fly,  "  "  swim,  "  &c.) 


*  The  following  letter  was  written  by  a  girl  in  her  fifth  year  at  a  certain 
School ;  not  the  Minnescta  school,  though,  we  could  doubtles  parallel  it. 
"  My  dear  Mother  : 

I  like  sews  something  cloths.  I  have  went  to  store.  I  like  see 
the  store.  Hughes  gives  to  me  and  reads  paper.  I  will  to  thank  you  and  the 
reads  paper.  I  am  glad  to  letter.  A.  L.  gives  to  me  and  nuts.  I  like  to  A.  L. 
My  teacher's  names  is  Miss  W.  Please  give  to  me  write  letter  the  Marys.  I 
like  to  school.  You  have  to  very  well.  Last  Sunday  I  reads  the  books.  I  am 
very  tired.  Please  give  to  me  and  stamps  sister  Marys.  Do  you  like  the 
school  ?  You  have  the  works.  You  sews  the  something  cloths.  You  are  well. 
I  read  the  books.  I  like  to  school.  I  see  the  store.  I  have  to  beautiful.  I 
walked  see  the  tree." 


63 

IV.  Common  nouns  preceded  by  the  article  are  now  com- 
bined with  -the  verb,  and  original  composition,  i.  e.,  written  descrip- 
tion of  actually  witnessed  occurrences,  now  takes  the  place  it  is  to 
keep  all  through  the  entire  school  course,  that  is,  it  forms  the  prin- 
cipal exercise  of  each  school  session. 

In  the  latter  years  this  composition  may  deal  with  last  sum- 
mer's experiences;  during  the  first  year  it  must  deal  with  im- 
mediate and  present  experiences. 

A  deaf  child  is  not  considered  to  have  learned  any  word  or 
sentence  form  until  he  has  learned  to  write  it.  This  is  his  real 
language  exercise. 

V.  The  transitive  verb  follows  with  its  object.     An  ordinary 
class  learns  to  use  three  sentence  forms  by  Christmas. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  school  year,  new  sentence  forms  are 
almost  as  eagerly  and  easily  imbibed  as  new  words,  but  the  great- 
est care  must  be  exercised  to  limit  the  number  presented.  Usually 
about  sixty  transitive  verbs  are  taught  during  the  year. 

VI.  In  January,  the  use  of  numeral  and  descriptive  adjec- 
tives is  introduced,  and  forty  or  more  of  these  are  found  available 
for  school  work. 

VII.  In  March,  Prepositional  phrases  make  their  appearance 
and  a  dozen  or  more  prepositions  furnish  material  for  school  work 
up  to  the  last  of  April  when  the  Pronouns  "  He,  "  "  His,  "  "  Him, " 
"She,"  "her,"  "it,"  "its,"  "They,"  "  their,"  "  them,"  "  I,"  "  my," 
"me,  "  "  We, "  "  our, "  "  You,  "  "  your, "  are  taught  in  their  gram- 
matical connection.      "I,"    "my,"  and  "me,"  have  been  used 
earlier.     Questions  corresponding  to  these  sentence  forms  are  also 
introduced. 

In  all,  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  words  are  used  in  the 
school  work  of  the  first  year,  not  merely  learned,  but  actually  med, 
as  a  child  uses  spoken  words. 

Grammatical  symbols  are  introduced  the  latter  part  of  the 
term  for  each  part  of  speech  and  a  common  exercise  is  to  give  the 
pupils  a  sentence  form  to  be  filled  out  with  appropriate  words. 

These  grammatical  categories  are  real  bonds  of  association  in 
the  mind  of  the  deaf  child,  probably  the  only  child  who  ever 
learns  a  language  on  grammatical  principles. 

When  I  asked  a  fifth  year  child  for  her  vocabulary,  the  first 


64 

sheets  handed  in  bore  the  words  I  taught  her  four  years  ago,  in 
groups,  of  transitive  verbs,  intransitive  verbs,  prepositions,  &c. 

I  found  a  comparison  of  the  work  done  in  the  first  year  of  a 
hearing  class  impossible  to  compare  with  the  work  just  outlined. 
The  hearing  child  having  a  language  already  at  command  can 
turn  his  attention  to  the  matter  of  thought  rather  than  the  vehicle. 
His  first  year  is  devoted  to  learning  to  read  rather  than  learning 
to  write. 

The  number  of  words  which  hearing  children,  five  and  six 
years  of  age,  learn  to  know,  by  sight,  the  first  year,  varies  exceed- 
ingly with  the  teacher. 

No  teacher  of  whom  I  made  inquiries  had  previously  kept  any 
account. 

One  primary  teacher  thought  that  her  pupils  learned  about  a 
thousand. 

Another  ascertained,  by  actual  count,  that  hers  had  learned 
two  hundred  and  thirty  (230),  (that  is,  learned  to  read  but  not 
learned  to  write). 

Sentence  forms  and  meanings  of  words  are  of  course  already 
learned  before  school  is  entered.  It  seems  as  though  the  mere 
learning  to  read  would  be  a  trifling  task  compared  with  the  work 
accomplished  in  the  deaf  child's  first  year ;  but  it  is  to  be  consider- 
ed that  the  latter  is  two  or  three  years  older ;  and  that  his  interest 
and  effort  are  concentrated  upon  his  school  work  in  a  manner  un- 
parallelled  in  a  public  school,  where  a  child  has  a  thousand  dis- 
tractions of  paramount  interest  to  his  lesson. 

As  is  to  be  expected,  the  deaf  form  a  characteristic  handwrit- 
ing much  earlier  than  the  hearing,  though  the  latter  enter  school 
two  years  younger. 

I  subjoin  a  few  specimens  of  hand-writing  for  comparison. 
These,  by  the  way,  are  the  only  specimens  of  handiwork  I  found 
it  possible  to  compare. 


Specimens  of  Handwriting. 


I  asked  deaf  children  eight  months  in  school  to  write  some- 
thing as  well  as  they  could.     This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  result : 


66 

The  following  is  an  average  specimen  of  the  handwriting  of  the 
eight-year-old  deaf  children,  who  entered  school  September  1899: 


SVJUTuL. 


67 

The  words  on  the  preceding  page  were  written  at  the  begin- 
ning of  their  eleventh  (llth)  week  in  school.  These  are  not  copied 
sentences,  but  regular  school  exercises  in  composition,  written 
directly  from  the  action  performed  or  the  picture  of  an  action. 
Naturally,  in  such  an  exercise,  the  mind  is  more  intent  upon  the 
order  of  the  words  than  upon  the  form  of  the  letters. 

Although  I  also  obtained  specimens  of  handwriting  from  hear- 
ing schools  I  do  not  insert  them  here,  for  the  reason  that  such 
specimens  are  so  easy  of  access  as  not  to  be  required. 

I  am  sure  that  anyone  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare 
hearing  children  with  deaf  children  in  the  matter  of  handwriting 
will  readily  yield  the  superiority  of  the  latter  and  read  with  a  new 
accent  the  claims  of  kindergartners  as  to  the  "educative"  "in- 
fluence of  finger-plays  in  developing  strength  and  flexibility  in 
the  tiny  lax  fingers."* 

It  is  difficult  to  see  why  deaf  children  should  learn  to  write 
easier  and  sooner  than  the  hearing.  I  have  been  asked  if  I  thought 
ordinary  children  would  write  as  well,  if  they  did  not  enter  school 
before  they  were  ten  years  old. 

My  own  theory  is  that  the  deaf  learn  to  write  easily  and  well, 
because  writing  for  them  is  not  an  end  but  a  means.  The  writers 
of  these  little  specimens  have  never  had  a  "writing  lesson."  Only 
in  trying  to  do  something  which  arouses  an  intellectual  interest,  as  a 
final  cause,  can  the  physical  capabilities  be  properly  developed. 

The  first  year  deaf  children  engage  in  the  ordinary  Kinder- 
garten occupations,  i.  e.,  "weave,"  "prick,"  etc.,  not  only  with  pre- 
cision and  neatness,  but  also  with  taste  and  fancy,  far  beyond  what 
I  have  witnessed  with  the  hearing,  but  I  made  no  actual  compari- 
sons. 

Perhaps  I  should  mention  one  "  knack  "  which  the  deaf  easily 
acquire,  although  it  is  as  much  a  matter  of  acquirement  with  them 
as  with  others.  This  is  illustrative  drawing. 

The  use  made  of  drawing  by  the  teacher  in  conveying  ideas 
suggests  to  the  child  a  means  of  making  himself  understood,  and 
he  gets  to  use  the  art  something  after  the  fashion  of  savage  picture- 
writing.  Features  important  to  the  matter  in  hand  are  exaggerat- 
ed to  enhance  their  effect. 

*(Preface    to    Emlie  Poulsson's    "Finger-Plays,"    25th    thousand,    Boston, 
Lothrop  Publishing  Company.) 


68 


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69 

I  give  here  an  extract  from  a  paper  on  the  Education  of  the 
Deaf  which  I  prepared  for  a  different  purpose  several  years  ago. 
It  illustrates,  perhaps,  as  well  as  anything  I  can  write,  the  very  be- 
ginnings of  scholastic  endeavor. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  aim  all  through  is  to  allow  life  to 
•impinge  upon  the  learner  as  much  as  possible,  and  to  find  written 
expression  for  real  experiences. 

It  is  the  very  acme  of  the  inductive  method,  not  chosen  from 
principle  but  because  it  is  the  only  way  of  conveying  information 
and  keeping  interest  always  alive. 

"  Fifteen  homesick  frightened  little  ones  are  before  us,  without 
the  knowledge  of  a  single  word,  moreover  without  an  idea  that  any 
object  in  the  universe  ever  had  a  name.  In  the  absence  of  mental 
furniture,  they  are  far  more  unreachable  than  a  savage  from  the 
wild. 

We  show  them  a  toy  cat,  we  draw  a  picture  of  a  cat,  we  write 
the  word  "<?a£,"  we  spell  the  word  "ca£."  They  view  our  gyrations 
with  solemn  wonder.  We  urge  them  to  follow  our  example.  Some 
of  affable  and  yielding  temper  will  acquiesce ;  others  of  steadier 
calibre  will  firmly  decline.  Do  not  press  the  matter.  Let  us  go 
out  and  find  a  cat  (there  is  always  one  somewhere.)  Having 
stroked  and  examined  her  let  us  dismiss  her  from  our  presence  be- 
cause she  can  scratch ;  if  a  real  wound  can  be  discovered  to  tie  up 
in  liniment,  so  much  the  better. 

As  we  stroll  about  the  grounds  let  us  draw  a  cat  in  the  sand 
and  trace  it  with  twigs  on  the  piazza.  Let  us  go  in  and  trace  it  on 
the  table  with  little  pebbles  and  with  candies  and  with  kernels  of 
popcorn,  and  with  beans ;  and  always  with  that  cabalistic  accom- 
paniment— cat. 

Let  us  write  this  word  with  a  white  crayon,  and  a  blue  crayon, 
and  a  red  crayon  and  a  yellow  crayon  :     Let  us  peer  at  it  through* 
a  bit  of  white  glass,  and  then  through  a  bit  of  blue  glass,  and  then 
through  green  glass,  and  then  through  red  glass,  and  then  through 
purple. 

Let  us  conclude  every  feature  of  the  entertainment  like  a  mis- 
sionary sermon  with  a  fervent  appeal ;  the  most  unyielding  oppo- 
sition must  bend  at  last,  and  the  child  will  write  and  spell  the 
word  though  a  week  may  be  required  to  induce  his  acquiescence. 


70 

In  like  manner  many  other  useful  animals  and  objects  are 
baptized  afresh,  and  a  pure  passion  for  learning  slowly  enwraps  the 
little  student;  and  then,  on  a  joyful  day  and  memorable,  we  begin 
the  study  of  verbs.  If  anything  on  earth  can  be  more  entrancing 
than  nouns,  it  is  verbs.  The  children  write  the  word  "run";  they 
are  now  willing  to  write  on  faith  ;  then  the  teacher  runs ;  then  we 
all  run.  "  Jump,"  "  hop,"  "  skip,"  "  dance,"  "  fall,"  u  whirl,"  "  fly," 
"  skate,"  follow,  and  in  obedience  to  those  mystic  white  lines  we 
call  words,  we  go  screaming,  tumbling,  laughing  and  jostling 
around  the  room  in  one  mad,  whirling,  glorious  rout!  When  was 
there  ever  such  fun  as  this?  And  if  verbs  are  wonderful  in  them- 
selves, what  shall  we  think  when  we  come  to  transitive  verbs? 
When  I  shake  you,  and  you  pinch  me,  and  she  washes  his  face, 
and  he  takes  off  her  apron  and  hides  it,  and  we  never  know  what 
will  happen  next?" 


WORDS   LEARNED   BY   THE   FIRST  YEAR   DEAF. 


ran 

walked 

jumped 

hopped 

danced 

cried 

laughed 

ate 

crawled 

lav 


sat 

drank 

rode 

fell 

flew 

swam 

played 

skated 

is 

was 


stood 

slept 

sewed 

drew 

wrote 

read 

roared 

coughed 

sneezed 

won 


went 

Aa 

he 

his 

him 


smiled 

the 

she 

her 

they 


woke 

me 

we 

-you 

some 


71 


them 

it 

their 

us 

I 

our 

my 

your 

1.     one 

clean 

black 

2.     two 

dirty 

white 

3.     three 

sweet 

brown 

4.     four 

polite 

purple 

5.     five 

impolite 

pink 

6.     six 

good 

orange 

7.     seven 

bad 

green 

8.     eight 

pretty 

red 

9.     nine 

cross 

blue 

10.     ten 

stupid 

yellow 

kind 

lazy 

tin 

sorry 

nice 

industrious 

deaf 

happy 

Faribault 

Thanksgiving  Day 

Sunday 

School 

Monday 

Home 

(And  about  thirty-five 

Tuesday 

Heaven 

proper  names  used  in 

Wednesday 

God 

School). 

Thursday 

Christmas 

Friday 

Easter 

Saturday 

in 

on                   over 

under 

around 

into                 behind 

before 

to              and 

from                at 

between 

pushed 

admired 

visited 

pulled 

opened 

whipped 

kicked 

shut 

reproved 

72 


carried 

struck 

shook 

rode 

ate 

drank 

played 

sewed 

drew 

wrote 

read 

waved 

washed 

hid 

found 

picked 

cat 

rat 

horse 

baby 

elephant 

rabbit 

bear 

bird 

fish 

lamb 

chair 

clock 

fan 

cup 

boy 

girl 

box 

lion 

pig 

mitten 

mule 


broke 

threw 

pinched 

blew 

rolled 

made 

saw 

had 

has 

held 

dropped 

led 

bit 

shot 

milked 

kissed 


dog 

pipe 

hat 

gun 

key 

door 

book 

floor 

broom 

table 

bed 

ball 

bell 

slate 

pencil 

crayon 

eraser 

stone 

sponge 

bottle 

stick 


tore 

gave 

wove 

climbed 

put 

folded 

taught 

thanked 

cut 

sharpened 

bought 

brought 

smelled 

took 

pricked 


ox 

paper 

basket 

tree 

handkerchief 

plate 

house 

town 

picture 

scissors 

window 

glasses 

dish 

knife 

fork 

glass 

saucer 

spoon 

cake 

pie 

shoe 


73 


candy  pepper  ant 

popcorn  salt  fly 

nut  tea  bee 

bread  coffee  hat 

orange  lemon  cupboard 

apple  pan  radiator 

water  can  wall 

milk  pail  register 

onion  grass  stove 

turnip  moss  sand 

potato  sun  desk 

cabbage  moon  seat 

flower  star  ink 

lilac  ^arth  pen 

leaf  post  glue 

root  rock  needle 

stem  fence  ring 

seed  gate  chain 

banana  ship  electricity 

cherry  boat  entertainment 

berry  barn  summer 

radish  rug  winter 

spring  fall 

The  foregoing  list  is  one  I  used  myself  with  the  class  which 

entered  September,  1895,  and  numbers  a  little  under  350. 

The  present  teacher  has  given  her  pupils  380  words  already 

(in  the  middle  of  April,  1899). 

Of  course,  the  children  pick  up  many  words  outside  the  class 

which  are  not  corrected  in  school,  nor  grammatically-  incorporated 

in  their  vocabularies  until  much  later. 

In  order  to  determine  how  far  a  deaf  child's  vocabulary  falls 

short  of  the  normal  standard,  I  asked  two  twelve-year-old  children, 

a  girl  and  a  boy,  to  write  out  for  me  all  the  words  they  know. 

The  little  girl  forthwith  sat  down  and  wrote  eight  hundred 

(800)  words  without  stopping,  except  to  eat. 

The  words  are  quite  detached,  with  no  discernible  connecting 

thread.     She  then  rose  and  handed  me  the  papers  saying,  uThat 

is  all  I  ever  knew." 


74 

Subsequent  arguments  induced  her  to  add  to  her  vocabulary 
by  240  more.  (Later,  1,150  in  all.) 

The  boy's  list  reached  965.     (Later,  1,415.) 

Of  course  such  a  list  as  this  is  not  complete.  It  simply  shows 
the  words  floating  on  the  surface  of  memory,  but  it  is  probably  far 
nearer  exhaustive  than  a  hearing  child's  list  would  be,  since  con- 
stant school-room  practice  keeps  the  linguistic  attainments  of  the 
deaf  always  available. 

Up  to  present  writing  I  have  not  been  able  to  prevail  upon 
any  hearing  child  to  attempt  to  "write  all  he  knows." 


SUMMARY. 


The  school  work  of  the  first  year  in  a  school  for  the  deaf  begins 
at  the  very  foundation  of  knowledge,  so  far  beneath  the  ordinary 
first  year  school  work,  that  the  deaf  child  really  never  attains  what 
the  hearing  child  starts  with. 

The  learner  is  hampered  by  lack  of  communication,  yet,  by 
interest  in  his  work,  really  learns  to  read,  write  and  spell  more 
words  than  the  ordinary  eight-year-old  child  two  or  three  years  in 
school,  can  read,  write  and  spell.  Beyond  this  acquirement,  the 
first  year  work  hardly  reaches,  for  language  drill  constitutes  nearly 
all  the  school  work  of  the  first  years. 


The  Psychology  of  Deaf  Children. 


Despite  my  ignorance  of  all  thought  processes,  and  the  deeper 
mystery  of  the  thoughts  of  children,  and  the  still  more  abysmal 
obscurity  of  the  thoughts  of  the  languageless  deaf,  I  still  admit  my 
firm  conviction  that  the  mind  of  the  deaf  child  is  essentially  like 
the  mind  of  the  hearing,  and  that  the  sense  defect  has  not  modi- 
fied general  laws  of  thought  and  thought  development. 

The  human  being,  like  the  race,  seems  to  pass  slowly  from  the 
inarticulate  age  to  the  age  in  which  expression  becomes  easy  and 
natural.  But  I  do  not  think  we  are  justified  in  arguing  the  blank- 
ness  of  a  child's  mind  from  his  impenetrable  secretiveness ;  and  I 
believe  the  deaf  child  to  be  the  more  like  the  hearing  child,  from 
their  common  reticence,  than  the  deaf  adult  is  like^the  hearing 
adult. 

I  am  sure  that  we  know  very  little  of  the  inner  nature  of 
children,  their  larger  hopes  and  graver  fears,  their  ideas  of  the  past, 
the  future  and  their  destiny.  I  have  heard  persons  confess  their 
own  violent  fear  of  death,  as  children,  and  concealment  of  this 
dread  as  of  guilt.  I  know  a  lady  who  says  that  she  woke  every 
night,  when  she  was  five  or  six  years  of  age,  and  cried  for  an  hour 
or  two  in  the  dread  lest  she  should  be  the  last  survivor  of  a  large 
and  rollicking  family,  and  in  her  unwillingness  to  leave  the  miser- 
able place  to  any  other  member.  She  says  that  she  only  found  a 
partial  peace,  at  last,  in  self-abnegation,  when  she  deliberately 
added  to  her  nightly  prayer  the  petition  that  she  and  not  one  of 
the  others  might  be  the  victim  of  this  awful  fate.  Yet  this  child 
was  known  to  the  adult  members  of  her  family  as  a  heedless,  un- 
thinking little  animal,  living  only  in  the  careless  present.  At  the 
the  same  age  she  reports  that  she  once  heard  of  a  drunken  man, 
coming  down  the  river  road.  She  dropped  on  her  knees  behind 
the  school-house,  and  prayed  that  he  might  fall  into  the  river  be- 


76 

fore  he  reached  her  vicinity.  The  child  "  I  knew  best  of  all "  feels 
that  she  can  never  again  suffer  such  agony  as  she  experienced  every 
night  for  several  years,  after  seeing  a  little  house  which  her  play- 
fellow told  her  had  once  been  an  "  Indian  dead  house."  As  nearly 
as  I  can  now  analyze  this  distress,  it  lay  in  the  "  watch  o'er  man's 
mortality." 

Another  person,  at  the  age  of  ten  suffered  torments  of  fear  lest 
she  and  her  family,  particularly,  she  says,  her  father  and  mother, 
should  happen  to  enter  a  cave,  whose  door  should  be  blocked,  and 
there  all  starve  to  death.  She  says  that  it  seemed,  somehow,  much 
worse  for  grown  people  to  suffer  than  for  little  children,  because 
she  felt  that  the  dignity  of  humanity,  embodied  in  them,  was  so 
cruelly  outraged  by  their  succumbing  to  physical  necessity.  The 
child  could  not  have  expressed  this  wire-drawn  distinction  to  have 
saved  the  "  Dignity  of  Humanity."  At  the  age  of  fifteen  she  first 
discovered  the  possibility  of  revealing  to  her  mother  some  of  the 
morbid  fancies  which  beset  her,  and  realized  the  blessed  relief 
which  followed  expression. 

One  of  my  instructors  has  told  me  that,  as  a  child,  he  felt  him- 
self mysteriously  predestined  to  live  forever  in  the  flesh,  and  looked 
with  a  superior  compassion  upon  his  playfellows,  "  morituri." 

These  passing  glimpses  into  the  depths  of  Child  nature  re- 
veal, at  least,  the  utter  folly  of  any  grown  person's  pretending  to 
catalogue  the  contents  of  any  'child's  mind  upon  the  lines  of  lin- 
guistic expression. 

The  psychology  of  deaf  children  I  must  approach  indirectly, 
as  all  psychological  data  are  gathered.  I  make  no  attempt  to  pre- 
sent a  mental  chart,  or  to  fill  out  the  scanty  material  collected  with 
an  imaginary  system,  or  to  string  isolated  facts  upon  a  logical  cord. 
Necessity  for  accuracy  casts  a  withering  blight  upon  picturesque- 
ness  of  presentation,  and,  in  the  great  difficulties  of  communication 
between  deaf  and  hearing,  completeness  of  evidence  must  be  sacri- 
ficed to  irreproachability.  In  fact,  so  cursory  is  this  sketch  of  the 
deaf  child's  mental  furniture  and  capabilities,  that  it  would  be 
quite  valueless  but  for  his  peculiar  limitation.  The  fact  that  every 
evidence  of  reason  here  offered  is  also  evidence  of  the  power  of  rea- 
son in  an  utterly  unrubbed  mind,  lends  an  interest  to  otherwise 
insignificant  material. 


77 

It  is  very  generally  maintained  that  reason  is  impossible  with- 
out a  real  language.  I  make  no  claim  that  truly  consecutive  and 
extended  lines  of  thought  can  be  pursued  without  the  use  of  arti- 
ficial thought  symbols;  but  that  thinking,  after  childish  fashion,  is 
impossible  without  the  ordinary  childish  command  of  language,  I 
believe  remains  to  be  proved.* 

Every  act  of  thought  is  an  act  of  generalization  or  dependent 
upon  one ;  the  materials  of  generalization  are  given  in  experience ; 
the  deaf  child  has  all  the  ordinary  avenues  of  experience  but  one ; 
if  the  absence  of  a  language  as  a  vehicle  for  thought  had  actually 
prevented  all  thinking,  we  should  not  certainly  expect  the  capacity 
for  symbolic  thought  and  reason  to  be  present,  whereas,  I  think 
that  even  the  few  facts  I  have  collected  indicate  the  common  ten- 
dency on  the  part  of  the  most  untaught  deaf  child  to  classify  and 
generalize  his  experiences,  and  to  follow  syllogistic  rules  of  reason- 
ing, in  a  halting  fashion  to  be  sure,  but,  to  say  the  least,  in  a  fash- 
ion far  beyond  the  possibilities  of  the  highest  brute.  That  lan- 
guage assists  us  in  thought,  we  know ;  but  that  it  is  not  the  real 
and  absolute  mould  of  thought,  seems  evident  from  the  fact  that 
not  one  of  us  really  knows  in  what  language  he  thinks.  We  find 
words,  German,  English,  Latin,  etc.,  spoken,  printed  and  written; 
we  find  signs,  we  find  visual  images,  we  find  mere  sounds  and  un- 
formed, unnamed  conceptions ;  all  these  we  find  in  our  thought, 
but  no  person  ever  lived  who  could  lay  his  finger  upon  any  one 
language  and  say,  "  That  is  the  vehicle  of  my  thought." 

I  wish  first  then  to  call  attention  to  the  generalizing  instinct 
(Hume's  "Manner  of  Thinking")  noticeable  in  the  very  earliest 
and  most  halting  conversations  with  the  Deaf.  That  the  children's 
first  lessons  are  of  the  representative  order,  does  not  render  insig- 
nificant the  readiness  with  which  they  adopt  our  methods  and  ex- 
tend them  further. 

Our  earliest  moral  lectures,  always  with  a  specific  example  of 
the  fault  to  be  shunned,  follow  the  time-honored  nursery  custom 
of  selecting  one  of  the  lower  animals  to  represent  a  particular  fault, 
and  seeking,  by  exaggerated  pictures,  expressions  of  disgust  and 
antitheses,  to  render  the  poor  animal  and  his  characteristic  as  odi- 
ous as  possible. 

*(W.  D.  Howells  says  that  nobody  is  ever  thinking  except  when  he  is  writ- 
ing or  talking). 


78 

So  eagerly  do  the  deaf  children  seize  upon  these  first  meta- 
phors, that  they  seldom  spell  or  write  the  name  of  the  representa- 
tive animal  without  appropriate  gesture  or  facial  expression,  and 
the  generalizations  are  extended  much  farther  by  learner  than  by 
the  teacher. 

A  little  girl  two  months  in  school  spied  a  number  of  pennies 
in  a  table  drawer.  She  was  a  model  of  good  behavior  all  day,  and 
at  the  close  of  school  asked  permission  to  give  a  "  lecture  to  the 
boys  and  girls." 

This  being  granted,  she  signed : 

"Miss  M.  has  many,  many  pennies  in  her  box.  We  have  all 
been  very  good  to-day,  but  she  does  not  pass  them  around;  uOh 
no !  She  keeps  them  all  herself.  P-I-G!  " 

Two  little  boys  who  had  been  caught  in  mischief  when  they 
should  have  been  asleep,  reported  the  Supervisor  as  having  been 
"  violent  and  cross,  like  a  raging  lion."  The  chief  culprit  told  us 
that  "  Mr.  J.  should  have  been  sweet  and  mild,  like  a  lamb  or  a 
little  bird." 

The  day  after  Thanksgiving  a  girl  announced  that  some  of 
the  children  gobbled  like  pigs,  but  that  she  had  "  pecked  away  at 
her  dinner  like  a  nice  little  hen." 

The  methods  employed  in  teaching  language  depend  largely 
upon  the  pupil's  power  of  generalization,  and  this  even  in  the 
earliest  stages  of  education.  I  will  give  a  very  simple  illustration 
of  this  in  a  page  from  my  school  Journal. 

"  Nov.  1st.  To-day  I  gave  the  first  lesson  involving  the  use  of 
the  common  noun  and  intransitive  verb."  (Proper  nouns  had 
already  been  used  with  eight  intransitive  verbs,  and  twenty  com- 
mon nouns  had  been  learned  independently).  "I  drew  a  picture 
of  a  pig  standing  still;  of  a  pig  walking ;  of  a  pig  running;  of  a 
pig  jumping ;  of  a  pig  eating  out  of  a  trough,  and  of  a  pig  standing 
on  his  hind  legs  and  dancing. 

I  then  wrote  the  sentences:  " 'A  pig  stands.'  'A  pig  walks.' 
;A  pig  runs.'  'A  pig  jumps.'  'A  pig  eats.'  'A  pig  dances.'" 

The  children  copied  the  pictures  and  the  sentences.  In  the 
afternoon  of  the  same  day  I  drew  a  picture  of  a  man  standing,  of 
a  horse  walking,  of  a  dog  running,  of  a  frog  jumping,  of  a  bird  eat- 
ing, and  of  a  boy  dancing.  I  told  the  children  to  write  about  the 


79 

pictures,  and  gave  no  further  help  than  to  point  to  the  Pig  Serial 
and  add :     "Just  as  you  wrote  about  the  pig." 

The  following  was  the  result,  after  more  or  less  hesitation,  from 
every  member  of  the  class : 

"'A  man  stands.'  1A  horse  walks.'  'A  dog  runs.'  'A  frog 
jumps.'  'A  bird  eats.'  'A  boy  dances.'" 

This  recognition  of  the  common  element  in  two  situations,  of 
the  necessity  for  placing  the  action-word  in  the  same  position  in 
each  sentence,  and  of  indicating  the  variable  element  by  its  appro- 
priate symbol,  sems  to  me  to  demonstrate  a  very  high  degree  of 
generalization.  Of  course,  it  is  to  be  understood  that,  in  the  sixth 
week  of  school,  signs  are  lacking  to  express  the  relations  here  set 
forth;  hence  each  child's  sentence  construction  is  really  original. 

(It  is  noticeable  that  in  the  first  year's  work,  which  consists 
wholly  of  language  exercises,  the  girls  are  much  superior  to  the 
boys.  I  took  note  of  this  with  two  classes  about  evenly  divided. 
In  one,  all  of  the  nine  girls  but  one  were  superior  to  the  nine  boys; 
in  another,  all  of  the  eight  girls  but  one  were  superior  to  the  seven 
boys). 

The  teacher  learns  the  irregularity  of  language  from  the  neces- 
sity of  teaching  it  regularly.     Often  linguistic  mistakes  are  perpe- 
trated through  the  logical  extension  of  a  rule.    When  one  class  was 
told  to  use  the  pronoun  "I"  instead  of  their  own  names,  they- 
signed  their  monthly  letters,  "  I  Jones,"  "  I  Schmidt,"  etc. 

One  boy  was  told  to  begin  his  home  letter  with  "  Dear  Grand- 
father." instead  of  "  Dear  Father  and  Mother."  I  explained  this  be- 
fore the  rest  of  the  class :  "  Because  your  Father  and  Mother  died 
last  year,  don't  you  remember?" 

When  the  letters  were  handed  in,  three  quarters  of  them  open- 
ed with  "  Dear  Grandfather."  I  inquired  why,  and  was  informed 
that  death  had  honored  nearly  every  family  there  represented  by 
entering  it  in  some  form ;  one  had  lost  an  uncle,  one  a  brother,  one 
two  calves,  some  only  chickens  and  kittens ;  but  nearly  all  felt 
their  houses  entitled  to  the  new  distinction. 

\Yhen  one  class  had  been  in  school  twelve  weeks,  transitive  verbs 
were  first  brought  into  requisition,  and  this  introduced  the  study 
of  formal  grammar,  on  the  so-called  "Five  Slate"  system.  An  act 
was  performed  represented  by  a  transitive  sentence,  as  "  Tommy 


80 

throws  a  ball;  "  The  boy's  name  was  written  upon  one  wall  slate, 
which  was  labelled  Subject  (S) ;  the  verb  was  written  upon  the 
second  slate  designated  as  (V  );  the  word  "  ball "  was  written  upon 
the  third  slate,  labelled  Object  (0):  Then  Tommy  stood  under 
"  S  ;  "  the  ball  was  placed  under  "  O,"  and  the  logical  relation  be- 
tween flesh  and  leather  was  made  visible. 

One  hour  of  instruction  sufficed  to  make  the  distinction  be- 
tween subject  and  object  quite  plain  to  the  class,  as  the  next  fifteen 
minutes  convinced  me. 

The  children  were  dismissed  for  recess,  but  after  a  lively 
scuffle  on  the  stairs,  two  boys  rushed  back  both  wildly  gesticulat- 
ing :  "  He  Verbed  me."  "  I  am  the  Object."  "  He  was  the  Subject." 
"TheV  was  push."  Then  both  boys  ran  to  the  slate  marked 
"0"  and  endeavored  to  stand  beneath  it,  each  urging  me  to  drag 
the  other  to  the  u  S  "  slate.  They  agreed  upon  the  verb  and  wrote 
"pushed"  under  "V~  "  with  unanimity. 


ADAPTATION. 


The  only  absolute  proof  of  efficacious  reasoning  power  lies  in 
visible  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 

Actual  inventiveness  is  a  rare  quality  among  any  little  child- 
ren, and  among  the  deaf  I  have  only  found  it  in  any  marked  de- 
gree in  various  devices  for  making  themselves  understood.  The 
parents  of  these  children,  when  asked  how  they  have  communicat- 
ed with  them,  respond  that  they  adopt  any  signs  the  child  may 
invent.* 

It  has  been  difficult  to  find  any  well  co-ordinated  adaptation 
of  means  to  ends,  even  in  their  plays.  In  fact,  I  think  Insti- 
tution life  is  ill  adapted  to  admit  of  originality  in  children.  There 
is  no  rubbish  for  them  to  play  with,  and  no  domain  their  very 
own.  In  school,  the  pupils  give  themselves  up  to  be  guided  by 
the  teacher  in  all  particulars.  I  think  adaptation  is  shown  by  near- 
ly all  in  trying  to  keep  their  own  things  separate  from  others. 

I  know  that  the  two  or  three  deaf  children  whose  homes  are 

*("By  signs,  most  he  thinks  himself."     A  letter  from  one  of  the  parents). 


81 

in  Faribault,  build  play-houses,  etc.  in  quite  an  ingenious  fashion 
at  their  own  homes. 

One  little  boy,  before  he  started  to  school  in  September  (after 
he  had  attended  one  year)  took  his  elaborate  play-house  in  pieces, 
packed  it  neatly,  board  on  board,  under  the  barn,  piled  heavy 
stones  upon  it  and  blocked  up  the  opening  through  which  he  had 
crawled,  with  stones.  This  showed  adaptation  to  ends  nine  months 
off,  and  the  boy  was  exceedingly  dull  in  school. 

I  may  say  that  "  For  ?  "  is  one  of  the  first  signs  which  the 
children  pick  up.  It  means  "To  what  End?"  as  they  use  it,  and 
they  use  it  a  thousand  times  a  day.  One  of  the  children,  on  his 
return  from  a  trip  to  Minneapolis,  gave  a  graphic  and  correct  ac- 
count of  the  switching  of  the  engines  at  Mendota;  showing  a  per- 
fect comprehension  of  the  reasons  for  this  manuevering  and.  the 
subsequent  course  of  the  two  trains.  He  had  never  ridden  that 
way  before ;  in  fact,  had  never  been  on  the  cars  but  once  before. 

The  boys  of  twelve  make  rabbit  snares  which  serve  their  pur- 
pose. 

The  girls  are  very  apt  in  dressing  their  dolls,  and  in  making 
both  ends  of  a  very  small  piece  of  cloth  meet  in  a  bonnet  or  a  dress.* 


RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTIONS. 


There  has  been  no  more  significant  chapter  to  me  in  the  nat- 
ural development  of  unnaturally  placed  individuals,  than  the  at- 
titude of  the  little  deaf  child  toward  religious  subjects  and  univer- 
sal causation. 

It  is  not  my  plan  to  attempt  any  account  of  the  cosmology  of 
the  untaught  Deaf.  I  do  not  imagine  that  they  have  any,  or  any 
curiosity  about  the  laws,  government  and  constitution  of  the  Uni- 
verse. 

*(The  older  boys  and  girls  show  the  most  evident  adaptation  in  preparing 
scenery  for  their  private  theatricals.  The  ingenuity  of  their  stage  setting  I  have 
never  seen  equalled.  Walking  cows,  boats  which  float  across  the  stage,  a 
clothes  wringer  so  constructed  that  a  small  boy  can  be  passed  through  it,  houses 
constructed  to  last  up  to  a  certain  point  in  the  play  and  then  fall  about  the  play- 
ers' ears,  are  a  few  of  their  inventions). 


82 

The  little  new  mind  is  often  pictured  as  a  bundle  of  inquisi- 
tiveness  concerning  environment. 

I  have  slight,  but  very  sure  ground  to  believe  that  such  inter- 
est must  be  roused,  and  may  be  easily  lulled  by  any  lame  explana- 
tion. For  I  can  remember  a  time  when  /  took  facts  as  they  came, 
with  little  curiosity  as  to  their  causes  or  effects,  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  I  am  still  often  in  the  same  frame  of  unthinking  acqui- 
escence. 

People  learn,  not  because  they  wish  to,  but  because  facts  are 
forced  upon  them  through  experience. 

If  the  children  first  entering  a  school  for  the  Deaf  have 
formed  any  theory  of  Creation,  Life  and  Death,  I  have  never  found 
any  evidence  of  it,  but  I  think  I  have  found  ample  witness  that 
they  have  as  ready  an  apprehension  of,  and  as  keen  a  pleasure  in, 
schemes  of  causation  as  normal  children.  What  abstractions  their 
minds  contain  before  meeting  other  minds,  we  can  of  course  never 
know,  but  that  they  are  all  ready  for  the  generalizing  process, 
seems  unquestionable,  and  that  they  should  have  interpreted  ear- 
lier experiences  in  the  fashion  perfectly  natural  to  them,  seems 
just  as  unquestionable. 

The  younger  members  of  a  class  never  admit  that  they  expect 
to  die,  and  probably  their  experience  has  been  too  limited  to  con- 
vince them  that  mortality  is  universal.  I  one  day  displayed  a  se- 
rial, consisting  of  pictures  of  a  baby,  a  little  boy,  a  big  boy,  a  young 
man  and  an  old  man.  All,  except  one  grown-up  pupil,  seemed  to 
think  that  the  five  pictures  represented  five  different  people,  and 
asked  if  the  baby  were  A.;  the  little  boy,  T. ;  the  old  man,  Mr  C.,  etc. 
J.,  however,  made  an  expressive  gesture  which  signified:  "  It 
is  the  picture  of  growing  up."  (He  placed  his  hand  near  the  floor, 
then  raised  it  four  successive  times ;  then  pointed  to  every  one  in 
the  room  to  show  that  the  lot  was  common.)  The  little  children 
were  interested  and  vastly  amused  to  learn  what  they  might  ex- 
pect; most  of  them  laughed  heartily  when  J.  told  them  they  would 
all  grow  bigger  and  stronger  for  a  time,  and  finally  stoop  and  grow 
weak.  Two  of  the  boys,  however,  were  very  angry,  and  vowed  that 
they  would  never  grow  "  weak." 

Nevertheless,  though  this  episode  would  indicate  that  these 
children  are  unaware  of  the  universal  law  of  change,  yet  I  have 


83 

three  instances  of  first  year  8-year-old  deaf,  who  referred  to  their 
babyhood,  and  two  who  spoke  of  what  they  should  do  when  they 
grew  up.  Hence  I  conclude  that  thought  of  the  past  and  for  the 
future  is  much  more  common  than  I  once  believed. 

These  do  not,  like  common  children,  have  their  profession  in 
life  selected.  I  have  not  found  one,  even  in  the  second  or  third 
year,  who  could  make  any  response  to  the  question :  u  What  do 
you  expect  to  be  ?  "  Of  course,  to  any  suggestion,  they  reply  "  Yes." 

That  they  are  actually  superstitious,  I  cannot  believe,  as  they 
have  heard  no  more  of  the  current  stock  of  tales  of  goblins,  ghosts, 
etc.,  than  a  baby,  but  the  element  of  superstition  is  present  the 
moment  a  baby  shrinks  from  the  touch  of  fur  or  cries  at  the  sight 
of  a  strange  face  or  voice.  The  deaf  girls  are  afraid  of  mice,  and 
some  of  the  boys,  as  well  as  girls,  are  afraid  of  the  dark.  One  little 
boy  told  me  that  a  fearful  monster  was  lying  in  wait  for  him  on 
the  cellar  stairs. 

I  know  of  no  method  of  measuring  moral  and  religious  sensi- 
tiveness, and  I  can  only  assume  that  a  deaf  child  is  capable  of 
thinking  and  feeling,  what  he  is  capable  of  expressing.  Each  one 
of  us  knows  himself  capable  of  thinking  far  more  than  he  can 
express;  but  we  must  judge  others  on  the  evidence  they  put 
into  Court. 

I  propose,  then,  under  this  head,  to  give  for  exactly  what  they 
are  worth,  some  incidents  and  conversations  of  which  I  took  note 
during  the  three  years  in  which  I  taught  first  year  deaf  classes.  I 
have  not  approached  the  children  who  entered  Sept.  '98,  upon  ab- 
stract subjects,  as  I  am  convinced  that  any  point-blank  question 
would  elicit  the  response,  "  I  am  stupid." 

The  first  year  children  have  no  set  religious  instruction,  but, 
in  order  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  "  cat ''  and  "  dog,"  Sunday 
morning  class  work,  devoted  by  the  older  pupils  to  Bible  Study,  is 
occupied  with  the  little  ones  by  picture  stories  and  talking  about 
home.  "  Sabbath  clothes  "  and  any  other  elevating  influence  which 
can  be  introduced,  assists  in  inducing  a  certain  exaltation  of  feel- 
ing, which  leads  to  communicativeness,  uncommon,  I  believe,  with 
hearing  children.* 

*(And  it  is  just  this  perfect  frankness  in  revealing  thoughts  and  feelings 
which  normal  children  hide  which  distinguishes  deaf  children),  and  makes  their 
study,  not  an  examination  of  monstrosities,  but  of  the  underlying  laws  of  human 
nature. 


84 

Some  of  the  conversations  here  set  down  (most  of  which  occur- 
red on  Sunday  mornings)  I  preserved  in  my  school  journals ;  others 
I  preserved  only  in  memory. 

I  will  record  with  considerable  detail  the  first  reference  I  made 
to  invisible  things  with  my  first  class.  I  remember  it  particularly, 
because  it  was  the  first  trial  with  my  first  class,  and  because  I  re- 
corded it  immediately  in  my  School  Journal. 

I  began  the  lesson  with  the  view  of  teaching  the  ordinary  do- 
mestic names,  "  Father,"  "  Mother,"  "Brother"  and  "Sister,"  also 
"  Home." 

I  drew  a  rough  sketch  of  a  cottage  interior,  such  as  I  imagined 
most  of  the  class  to  have  come  from.  The  room  contained  a 
woman  sitting  in  a  rocking-chair,  holding  a  baby,  while  several 
other  small  children  hung  around  her  skirts ;  before  the  stove  lay 
a  cat  and  a  dog ;  a  man  stood  in  the  background. 

I  turned  to  expound  the  picture  to  the  children,  and  found 
them  in  a  state  of  great  excitement ;  two  were  weeping  with  home- 
sickness, one  had  started  for  the  door,  hat  in  hand,  en  route  for 
home.  All  were  wildly  clapping  their  breasts  in  the  claim  that 
the  domicile  was  theirs,  and  complaints  poured  in  to  the  effect 
that  the  man  was  too  small,  or  needed  a  mustache,  or  that  there 
should  be  five  instead  of  four  children,  or  three  windows  instead  of 
two.  The  mother  and  the  baby  satisfied  all  parties. 

The  death  of  the  baby  of  the  class  some  time  in  the  second 
month  of  the  school  year,  seemed  to  necessitate  the  introduction  of 
some  conception  of  life  and  death  less  material  than  the  aspect 
upon  which  the  children  dwelt  with  a  fascinated  horror. 

To  my  surprise,  although  the  children  all  declared  they  had 
never  heard  my  story  before,  they  hailed  it  with  ready  acceptation 
and  delight.  From  that  time  on,  this  particular  class  took  great 
interest  in  all  "  spiritual "  subjects,  and  adopted  so  readily  the  idea 
of  God,  the  Creator  and  Preserver  of  the  Universe,  that  it  seemed  to 
me  almost  incredible  that  the  conception  could  be  entirely  new  to 
them. 

One  Sunday  morning,  the  children  asked  who  made  them, 
and  in  somewhat  realistic  pictures  I  presented  the  story  of  the 
"  Breath  of  Life  "  breathed  into  the  nostrils  of  a  child. 

This  was  received  as  final,  and  accepted  by  all  but  one,  a  little 
cross-eyed  girl,  who  asked : 


85 

"  Who  made  Katie  and  Frank  and  me?"  (Katie  and  Frank 
were  misshapen  cripples).  Upon  being  informed  that  God  made 
all  three,  as  well  as  the  other  children,  she  responded: 

"  That  makes  three  mistakes.  He  ought  to  have  been  more 
careful." 

Another  child,  after  a  thunder  storm,  said  that  "  Christ  made 
a  great  mistake  the  night  before.  He  killed  a  cow  when  he  was 
playing  with  lightning.  " 

When  I  first  gave  them  the  word  "God,"  and  said  that  .He 
made  everything,  I  asked  them  if  He  was  good  or  bad.  There  was 
no  difference  of  opinion  here.  All  agreed  emphatically  that  the 
Maker  of  all  things  is  entirely  good.  One  added  that  there  is  a 
"Bad"  who  lives  in  the  ground.  I  asked  where  God  lives,  and 
every  forefinger  pointed  upward. 

The  little  cross-eyed  girl,  not  always  in  a  condemnatory  mood, 
announced,  two  weeks  later,  that  she  was  "such  friends"  with  God 
and  loved  him  so  much  that  she  looked  up  into  the  sky  every 
morning  and  every  evening,  hoping  to  see  him,  but  she  never 
could,  and  thought  it  must  be  because  she  had  such  "bad  eyes." 

A  boy  hastened  to  inform  her:  "  You  can't  see  God;  nobody 
can ;  He  is  only  breath" 

There  are  of  course  marked  temperamental  differences  among 
the  Deaf,  as  well  as  other  children,  in  the  matter  of  spirituality. 

A  boy  who  had  conceived  an  ardent  regard  for  the  tiniest  girl 
of  the  class,  asked  permission  one  day  to  talk  to  her.  Receiving 
this  permission,  he  signed: 

"  0  Carrie,  you  are  so  sweet  and  beautiful,  I  know  God  would 
let  you  go  to  Heaven,  for  a  while,  some  day.  Should  you  like  to 
go?" 

The  child  thought  she  should,  and  promised  to  ask,  "  On — per- 
haps next  week. '' 

Her  admirer  continued : 

"Your  hands  and  feet  are  so  sweet  and  tiny,  just  like  an 
angel's." 

The  child  inspected  her  members  for  a  moment  and  said : 

"  Yes,  my  feet  are  small ;  but  I  think  they  look  like  a  cow's.  " 

The  boy  then  went  on  to  warn  her  against  tight  lacing ;  some 
of  the  boys  had  told  him  that  a  certain  girl's  sickness  had  been 


caused  by  getting  strings  and  tying  them  tight  around  her  waist. 

"You  must  never  do  that,  Carrie  ;  it  will  make  you  weak.  " 

Carrie  replied:  "  Of  course  not;  cows  never  do.  " 

Upon  seeing  an  Orrery,  the  children  asked  if  it  were  true,  i.  e. 
a  representation  of  the  true. 

1  told  them  not  really,  because  the  pieces  of  metal  which  held 
the.  worlds  in  place  were  not  visible  or  existent. 

They  asked  why  then  did  not  the  worlds  tumble.  I  told 
them  God  watched  over  them  always,  never  sleeping  or  turning 
away  his  eyes,  and  held  them  in  their  places,  moving  them  in  per- 
fect accord. 

Upon  this,  a  little  girl  turned  to  the  other  children  and  signed : 

"  God  is  not  much  like  you.  What  would  happen  to  the  stars 
if  He  should  begin  to  stare  around  and  play  with  other  things 
a,nd  not  attend  to  his  business?  You  can  never  pay  attention  but 
a  little,  little  minute;  but  God,  always  ! " 

(As  "  paying  attention  "  is  the  absolute  requisite  of  all  progress 
with  the  Deaf,  it  is  preached  in  season  and  out  of  season,  and  gets 
to  be  regarded  as  the  cardinal  virtue. 

A  child  who  had  spent  several  days  in  the  hospital  with  a  hard 
cold,  epidemic  at  the  time,  reported  upon  her  return  to  the  school 
that  she  "  improved  "  faster  than  anyone  else  in  the  hospital,  be- 
cause, whenever  the  "Doctor  came  in  she  paid  attention,"  while  the 
other  children  were  always  "looking  around.") 

I  soon  found  that  even  denominational  dissensions  were  rend- 
ing my  little  class,  although  these  were  certainly  not  upon  very 
abstract  grounds.  A  little  Jewess  was  informed  by  an  older  broth- 
er in  the  School  that  she  must  tear  out  all  the  cross-shaped  figures 
in  her  Kindergarten  book,  for  a  man  was  struck  dead  once  for 
looking  at  a  cross. 

A  Lutheran  boy  foreswore  the  faith  of  his  parents,  for  he  said 
that  in  his  home  church  they  put  people  in  the  ground  when  they 
died,  and  did  not  let  them  fly  to  Heaven. 

Seeing  among  the  older  children  the  contentions  :  "  Catholics 
are  best,"  or  "  Protestants  are  best,"  they  asked  me  to  define  the 
difference  between  Catholic  and  Protestant.  I  told  them  I  could 
not,  as  they  did  not  understand  enough  signs : 

"Then  draw  it!  Draw  it!  Quick!  I  can't  wait!  I  must 
know ! " 


87 

It  will  be  admitted,  I  think,  that  the  spirit  in  which  young 
deaf  children  accept  religious  teaching  does  not  differ  materially 
from  the  attitude  of  the  normal  child.  And  it  may  not  be  out  of 
place,  here,  to  contrast  this  devout  attitude  of  little  children,  just 
confronted  with  religious  concepts,  with  that  of  an  adult  under  the 
same  circumstances.  Every  congenital  deaf-mute,  deprived  of 
education  up  to  the  age  of  reason,  offers  a  most  interesting  study 
of  individual  development.  We  hear  much  of  the  danger  to  so- 
ciety of  the  uneducated  deaf-mute,  with  a  man's  strength  and  ag- 
gressiveness, and  a  babe's  comprehension  of  law  and  duty.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  such  monsters  are  seldom,  if  ever,  met.  It  is  true, 
the  adult  uneducated  deaf  are  narrow  and  unsympathetic,  but  as 
a  rule,  they  come  to  us  honest,  gentle  and  industrious,  and,  stran- 
ger yet,  with  a  certain  soundness  of  judgment,  characteristic  of  men- 
tal maturity. 

In  view  of  the  position  that  language  is  an  essential  of  logical 
thought,  I  will  describe  the  first  occasion  upon  which  my  class 
happened  to  include  a  grown-up  pupil  when  the  subject  of  religion 
was  first  broached. 

The  children  had  brought  in,  one  morning,  the  report  of  two 
young  men  drowned  while  skating.  Horror  and  grief  mingled 
with  feelings  purely  base. 

One  little  girl  said:     "  Their  mother  will  cry  all  day.'' 

Another,  "  I  hope  they  can  find  them,  for  they  had  their 
clothes  on,  and  perhaps  money  in  their  pockets.  What  a 
loss!" 

As  in  the  previous  year,  my  opportunity  was  forced  upon  me. 
I  asked  how  many  knew  that  we  must  all  die.  Not  one,  except 
the  big  boy;  and  the  information  that  we  must,  gave  them  all  the 
"shivers."  I  sought  to  enlighten  their  pagan  materialism  by  tell- 
ing them  that  only  the  bodies  of  the  drowned  boys  lay  in  the  dark, 
cold  water.  The  breath,  the  life,  the  self,  had  taken  flight  to  God, 
who  made  it.  The  children  received  this  assurance,  as  it  is  always 
taken,  with  extravagant  relief  and  joy.  An  exceedingly  primitive 
presentation  of  spiritual  ideas  is  the  only  one  compatible  with 
visible  objectivity.  With  an  unprotesting  conscience,  I  covered 
the  blackboard  with  hasty  drawings  of  Elysian  fields,  Gates  of 
Paradise,  Cloud-draped  Throne,  Streets  of  Gold,  Blessed  River  and 


88 

Tree  of  Life,  thronged  with  angelic  shapes.*  The  rapture  of  the 
spectators  was  as  ready  as  it  is  always  touching. 

The  active  little  minds  sought  out  all  personal  bereavements 
and  trials,  and  cast  them  into  the  golden  solvent  of  immortality,  to 
be  etherealized  into  personal  joys.  "  How  glad  I  am  that  every 
one  must  die!"  "May  I  die  soon?"  "Let  you  and  me  go  to- 
gether." 

"  I  shall  have  no  sore  heels  there !  "  "  And  no  chapped  hands !  " 
"  I  shall  see  my  baby  sister  again !  "  "I  can  learn  quick  there !  " 

(Strange  to  say,  not  one  rejoiced  :  "  I  shall  not  be  deaf,  there." 
They  do  not  recognize  their  deafness  as  an  affliction.  Several, 
however,  said,  "  The  blind  can  see  there"). 

In  the  midst  of  these  pious  rhapsodies,  I  began  to  be  aware  of 
a  skeptical  presence.  Simon,  the  grown-up  pupil,  sat  "  to  atten- 
tion," but  with  a  quiet,  satirical  smile  upon  his  face,  which  plainly 
said,  "  I  wont  tell  the  little  boys  how  you  are  fooling  them.'' 

I  said :  "  I  am  not  in  fun ;  this  is  true."  Roused  to  keener  in- 
terest, he  asked :  "  You  have  seen  these  spirits  of  dead  people, 
have  you,  flying  up  to  Heaven  ?  "  I  answered  "  No,"  (which  was 
a  great  shock  to  all  the  class).  ';  How  do  you  know,  then  ?  "  I  blew 
upon  his  hand  and  asked  if  he  could  see  the  breath ;  he  said  "  No," 
and  I  told  him  that  the  invisible  part  of  man  was  the  Heavenly 
part.  This  I  felt  to  be  a  very  sophistical  argument,  even  though  it 
impressed  the  skeptic,  so,  finding  natural  Theology  inadequate,  I 
fell  back  upon  Revealed  Religion.  "  I  read  all  this  in  a  book." 
This  was  sufficient  to  establish  my  claims  to  belief;  all  books  are 
sacred  to  these  disciples.  Simon  now  took  the  case  seriously,  and 
in  this  mood  was  even  more  disconcerting.  "  What  shall  we  do 
there?  Will  it  not  get  very  crowded?  If  God  is  a  very  big  man, 
he  can't  take  care  of  those  little  babies.  Oh,  does  he  hand  them 
over  to  the  lady  angels  ?  That  is  a  good  plan.  What  do  those 
people  wear?  If  people  don't  work  hard,  do  they  work  at  all? 
Needn't  the}'-  do  any  farming  to  make  things  grow  on  the  trees  ? 
Don't  they  have  any  cars  or  engines  or  bicycles,  or  do  they  only 
fly?" 

*(  Another  teacher  led  her  class  in  to  look  at  the  drawings  without  having 
prepared  their  minds  for  the  interpretation.  The  effect  was  disastrous.  All 
were  horrified  ;  one  said  it  was  "sickening"  ;  three  wept ;  one  cried  the  rest  of 
the  day.) 


(Flying  suddenly  began  to  seem  to  me  like  a  hopelessly  ar- 
chaic mode  of  locomotion.)  "  Can  people  skate  there  without  fall- 
ing into  the  water?  You  said  it  was  never  winter,  always  pleasant 
summer.  How  can  the  water  freeze?  Are  there  cows?  Because 
John  can't  eat  anything  but  milk.  And  if  there  are  cows,  and 
horses  and  dogs,  why  not  cats,  and  pigs  and  hens  and  rats?  "  (Here 
I  was  obliged  by  the  entreaties  of  the  other  children  to  add  cats 
and  hens  to  the  list  of  the  Elect.)  "  But  why  not  pigs  ?  What  be- 
comes of  their  breath?  "  "  I  don't  know."  "  Look  in  the  book  and 
see."  "I  can't;  the  man  who  wrote  the  book  didn't  say."  "  Care- 
less !  The  man  didn't  say."  I  was  becoming  so  involved  in  ex- 
temporaneous reconciliation  of  science  and  religion,  that  I  followed 
the  example  of  all  weak  prophets  in  telling  Simon  to  ask  no  more 
questions,  until  he  could  read  the  book  for  himself. 

Slight  as  was  this  incident,  it  was  significant  to  me  of  several 
things :  first,  that  the  figurative  clothing  of  spiritual  truth  is  ap- 
propriate and  really  true  to  the  symbolizing  instinct  of  the  child, 
but  rejected  as  spurious  by  the  adult;  second,  that  the  teacher  who 
feels  no  qualms  of  conscience  in  imagining  picturesque  details  for 
the  little  child,  knows  herself  to  be  little  better  than  Baron  Mun- 
chausen  when  presenting  such  traditions  to  an  older  mind.  The 
vagueness  which  the  child  is  content  with,  and  accepts,  as  poetry, 
the  mature  questioner  insists  upon  limiting  and  defining. 

(Are  we  only  liars  when  our  hearers  are  capable  of  weighing 
and  rejecting  our  evidence?) 

Third,  the  fact  of  interest  in  this  study  :  the  mind  of  a  wholly 
untrained,  uncompanioned  deaf-mute  loses  its  childish  methods  of 
thought  and  takes  on,  with  yefars,  alone,  (not  education,)  mature 
habits  of  reason  and  skepticism. 

(The  young  man,  Simon,  is  not  a  youth  of  remarkable  intellect, 
but  a  good  fair  specimen  of  a  deaf  boy.  In  school  work,  he  barely 
keeps  up  with  the  little  children  of  his  class.) 


90 
SUMMARY. 


Although  I  have  found  no  evidence  that  untaught  deaf  chil- 
dren formulate  a  scheme  of  the  Universe  for  themselves,  they  show 
deep  interest  in  all  inculcated  systems,  and  such  readiness  to  adopt 
the  idea  of  a  First  Cause  as  to  suggest  their  having  given  some  re- 
flection to  the  subject  before  instruction. 

There  is  far  more  natural  religion  revealed  in  their  earliest 
questions  and  interpretations  than  natural  morality  revealed  in 
their  conduct.  Whether  or  no  more  interested  in  religious  con- 
cepts than  ordinary  children,  they  are  more  communicative  with 
their  teachers  upon  such  subjects. 


MORAL  CODES. 


Religious  schemes  are  more  readily  accepted  than  moral 
codes,  and  there  seems  more  reason  to  believe  Man  an  essentially 
religious,  than  an  essentially  moral  animal. 

In  morals,  as  in  language,  the  Deaf  come  to  us  entirely  un- 
trained. And,  like  everyone  else,  they  find  applied  morals  the 
most  difficult  of  all  branches  of  study. 

I  have  found  little  evidence  of  any  ideal  of  conduct  among 
the  newly  arrived  deaf.  I  suppose  they  must  all  have  struck  some 
kind  of  practical  balance  of  behaviour  with  their  home  circle,  but, 
as  a  rule,  they  have  accepted  this  with  no  comprehension,  no  log- 
ical acquiescence  and  little  sympathy.  The  "  Consciousness  of 
Kind  "  is  slight  when  Kind  is  absent :  Frankness  is  an  undevel- 
oped virtue,  since  no  one  can  be  frank  amid  foreigners.  The  social 
qualities  of  little  deaf  children  really  seem  hardly  more  developed 
than  those  of  an  animal. 

I  have  tried  the  experiment  of  seating  four  new  arrivals  about 
a  table  (after  their  first  shyness  was  worn  off)  and  suddenly 
dropping  something  desirable  in  their  midst ;  instantly  it  has  been 
seized  by  eight  hands,  and  the  strongest  pair  has  retained  posses- 


91 

sion.  Even  when  a  child  has  been  better  trained  at  home,  this  is 
his  immediate  attitude  toward  the  enemies  whom  he  finds  holding 
the  field  in  his  strange  environment. 

It  is  long  before  this  hermit  selfishness  wears  off.  There 
seems  no  doubt  that  untrained  children  are  absolutely  and  unre- 
servedly selfish,  without  regard  to  their  necessities,  more  so  than 
the  gregarious  animals.  This  appears  from  the  trifling  or  nega- 
tive value  of  the  things  they  are  ready  to  quarrel  over.  A  child 
cried  because  another's  father  had  a  longer  name  than  his ;  an- 
other, because  his  seat-mate  was  a  month  older  than  himself. 

When  I  first  gave  the  class  a  compound  grammatical  subject, 
I  said  nothing  of  the  order  in  which  the  names  were  to  be  written. 
The  work  of  the  three  boys  selected  to  write  the  first  sentence 
stood  as  follows : 

George's  work: — "  George,  Willie  and  Albert  eat  apples." 

Willie's  work  : — "  Willie,  George  and  Albert  eat  apples." 

Albert's  work : — "  Albert,  George  and  Willie  eat  apples." 

And  a  pitched  battle  was  imminent  to  compel  the  common 
adoption  of  each  of  these  versions.* 

And  yet  these  very  acts  of  rivalry  are  the  beginnings  of  socia- 
bility and  sympathy,  and  mark  the  growing  self -consciousness  and 
other-consciousness  requisite  to  morality. 

Often  two  children  who  have  wrangled  over  trifles  all  through 
the  first  months  of  the  term,  will  choose  each  other  for  "friends." 
Jealousy,  itself,  is  the  first  stage  of  respect. 

The  property  rights  of  others  are  at  first  absolutely  disregarded : 
Mine  is  held  as  profoundly  sacred,  the  only  "God  in  Israel."  Thine 
is  only  comprehended  to  be  envied  and  made  mine  as  rapidly  as 
possible.  To  state  the  case  baldly,  the  newly  entered  little  deaf 
children  usually  steal  and  would  lie  if  they  knew  how.  If  an  un- 
wise attendant  charges  them  with  a  fault  before  they  have  learned 
to  avoid  the  latter  from  choice  and  self-respect,  their  answer  is  ab- 
solutely no  criterion  of  the  facts. 

The  deaf  child,  upon  entering  school,  has  apparently  no  caution 
and  no  recognition  of  authority ;  violence  is  instantly  met  by  it- 

*(I  cannot  understand  upon  what  grounds  of  preference  these  children,  un- 
witting of  all  social  distinctions,  should  choose  the  first  place.  But  the  honor 
of  fat  first  is  a  matter  we  do  not  need  to  teach.) 


92 

self.  The  deaf  child  is  (and  I  think  always  remains)  absolutely 
reckless  of  consequences  when  his  passion  is  roused.  It  would 
surprise  anyone  to  see  what  the  absolutely  unbridled  might  of  a 
very  little  human  being  can  be;  it  takes  a  bold  man  .to  stand  up 
against  it;  few  care  to  provoke  it.* 

Yet,  before  many  weeks  have  passed,  order  and  docility  are 
completely  established,  and  generosity  appears  as  a  dawning  mo- 
tive.f 

I  have  never  known  an  instance  of  morbid  cruelty  or  bullying 
among  the  deaf;  the  little  boys  are  never  afraid  of  the  older  ones, 
as  is  often  the  case  with  the  blind ;  the  original  attitude  of  the  deaf 
child  is  simply  that  of  the  Barbarian,  simple  brutality. 

A  little  boy  once  managed  to  convey  this  story  to  the  class  by 
halting  signs  and  rude  drawings :  "  I  had  a  very  bad  little  baby 
sister;  she  was  just  learning  to  walk;  she  crawled  out  doors;  she 
stood  and  began  to  walk,  like  this:"  (tottering  with  outstretched 
arms):  "She  picked  up  a  stone  and  threw  it  at  me.  It  struck  my 
cheek  and  the  blood  ran.  In  three  days,  my  baby  sister  was  sick; 
she  was  sick  four  days;  then  she  shut  her  eyes  and  lay  still.  They 
put  her  in  a  box.  They  made  a  hole  in  the  ground.  They  put 
dirt  on  the  box  and  heaped  it  up  and  stamped  it  down.  She  can 
never  get  out.  And  I  stood  by  and  watched,  and  I  threw  a  stone 
on,  too.  The  blame  be  on  her! " 

When  the  death  of  the  little  boy  before  alluded  to  occurred 
early  in  the  term,  the  general  impression  seemed  ineradicable  from 
his  school-fellows'  minds,  that  he  died  as  a  retribution  for  his  sins. 
"  He  made  you  so  much  trouble,"  they  would  reply  to  my  pitying 
comments.  "  He  ran  around  all  the  time ;  he  tipped  over  his 
beads;  he  scratched  our  papers ;  he  would  not  write;  he  did  not 
know  anything ;  he  played  all  the  time,  and  he  sucked  some  poison 
berries.  He  was  a  new  fool.  The  blame  be  on  him! '" 

*(A  little  boy,  seven  years  of  age,  with  one  paralyzed  arm  and  one  club 
foot,  managed,  the  first  time  he  was  crossed,  to  demoralize  with  his  whole  mem- 
bers three  stalwart  men,  merely  by  the  recklessness  of  his  onslaught). 

fit  hardly  needs  statement  that  bad  management  at  the  start  might  easily 
bias  a  child's  moral  conceptions  and  embitter  his  whole  life  by  giving  him  a 
feeling  of  antagonism  to  law  and  order.  Not  only  might  this  happen  but  every 
friend  of  the  deaf  knows  that  it  has  happened.  A  deaf  child  may  go  absolutely- 
untrained  until  he  is  twelve  years  old,  and  come  out  the  better  for  the  "  rest ;  " 
to  begin  the  breaking-in  process  wrong  is  as  fatal  as  to  train  a  young  horse  in 
the  way  he  should  not  go. 


93 

Then,  for  a  time,  the  children  seemed  to  forget  him,  and  when 
his  name  was  revived  in  the  spring,  it  was  with  quite  a  new  accom- 
paniment of  toleration  and  compassion. 

Four  of  the  children  from  that  very  class,  now  five  years  in 
school,  called  on  me  the  other  day,  and  asked  if  I  remembered  the 
"  sweet  little  baby  boy  who  died  when  we  were  all  '  new  fools ! '  He 
was  so  pretty  and  had  such  bright  eyes,  and  was  always  laughing. 
He  skipped  about  like  a  little  bird,  and  often  tore  our  work,  but 
we  did  not  scold  him,  he  was  so  little  and  sweet,  and  his  mother 
was  dead." 

In  the  light  of  later  moral  illumination  acts  of  an  unregenerate 
past  are  judged.  A  boy  four  years  in  school  recently  went  to  his 
first  teacher  and  asked  her  to  excuse  him  for  behaving  so  badly 
when  he  first  came  to  school.  "  I  was  just  like  these  little  boys. 
I  fought  and  kicked  the  door  when  my  father  left  me.  It  was  bad. 
Forgive  me." 

I  consider  this  rapid  transition  from  barbarism  to  civilization 
one  of  the  most  interesting  phases  of  the  deaf  child's  development. 
It  is  considered  the  miracle  of  education,  that  the  wild,  undisci- 
plined, little  savages,  who  are  brought  to  the  institution  every  fall, 
become  so  soon  and  so  quickly  organized  into  an  orderly  and  happy 
community.  No  iron  discipline  is  used ;  every  one  acquainted 
with  the  deaf  knows  that  this  would  be  worse  than  useless.  The 
characteristic  of  the  revolution  is  that  it  is  not  only  a  peaceful,  but 
a  pleasant  one ;  the  child,  with  his  inherited  predilection  for  order 
and  discipline,  even  in  his  rebellious  entrance  into  an  organization 
is  ready  to  meet  its  requirements  halfway,  and  to  admire  its  sym- 
metry as  soon  as  he  comprehends  it.  It  is  because  each  deaf  child 
presents,  in  his  tutelage,  an  epitome  of  the  socialization  and  or- 
ganization of  the  human  race,  that  it  is  to  us  a  significant  chapter 
in  education. 

The  whole  process  depends  upon  "consciousness  of  kind"  and  imi- 
tation, for  its  foundation,  and  is  an  eventual  triumph  of  social  over 
non-social  instincts  in  hitherto  isolated  and  unsocial  human  beings.* 

*The  twenty-month-old  daughter  of  a  friend  of  mine  was  very  ill-behaved 
at  the  table,  until  a  little  sister,  six  months  younger,  was  adopted  into  the  family. 
At  the  first  meal  the  new  arrival  cried  and  fussed  disagreeably.  The  older  child 
watched  her  fixedly  for  a  few  minutes,  then  climbed  down  from  her  chair  and 
administered  a  sound  slap  to  the  offending  baby.  She,  herself,  was  very  care- 
ful of  her  table  manners  thereafter. 


94 

There  is  no  question  but  that  the  deaf  of  two  or  three  years 
standing  in  school,  nay,  of  three  months,  are  more  willingly  docile, 
more  cheerfully  well  behaved  than  ordinary  school  children.  They 
range  themselves  upon  the  side  of  authority,  not  against  it.  Limit- 
ed as  may  be  their  reasoning  powers,  they  show  a  practical  accep- 
tation of  the  truth,  which  normal  children  are  slow  to  realize,  that 
government  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  governed,  and  that  the  indi- 
vidual must  yield  his  whim  to  the  general  good. 

They  remain,  of  course,  irritable,  selfish  and  quarrelsome,  like 
all  human  beings  ;  not  more  so,  I  think.  They  learn  to  admire 
generosity,  and  to  give  away  things  they  do  not  want,*  (and  occa- 
sionally what  they  do  want,f  but  this  is  a  very  high  moral 
ground  for  anyone).  In  fact,  I  call  that  a  generous  child  which 
takes  pleasure  in  bestowing  cheap  favors,  the  essence  of  kindness 
being  the  comprehension  of  another's  need. 

Before  the  close  of  the  first  year,  all  the  solid  members  of  the 
class  have  taken  their  stand  by  honesty  of  word  and  deed.  This 
is  still  a  fragile  honor,  one  easily  broken  by  neglect  or  unwise  dis- 
cipline, but,  perhaps,  nearly  as  firm  as  that  of  most  eight-year-old 
children.  When  open  avowal  of  faults  comes  on  in  the  order  of 
recognized  "  niceties",  it  is  wonderful  to  see  the  children  vieing 
with  each  other  in  confessing  all  the  misdeeds  of  the  year.  But 
the  significant  point  to  consider  is  the  growth  (visible,  before  our 
eyes)  of  a  class  code  of  morality.  And  this  early  recognition  of 
"  solidarity  "  among  those  upon  the  same  plane,  is  the  most  inter- 
esting feature  of  the  first  year  in  school. J 

*A  white-haired  lady  once  visited  my  school-room.  Before  she  had  fairly 
crossed  the  threshold  she  was  approached  by  a  little  boy  with  two  rabbits'  tails. 

"  You  may  have  these,"  he  signed.  "  I  am  sorry  for  you,  because  yqu  are 
so  old." 

f  When  six  of  this  year's  entering  class  were  taken  to  Minneapolis  in  the 
spring,  they  kept  the  stay-at-homes  constantly  in  mind,  stowing  away  in  their 
pockets  a  portion  of  candy  and  fruit  for  those  who  could  not  "pleasant." 

\\\.  is  a  significant  fact  that  large  families  of  deaf  children,  or  even  the  deaf 
with  one  or  two  deaf  brothers  and  sisters,  are  much  more  like  ordinary  young- 
sters than  the  isolated  deaf.  I  have  noted  this  difference  in  several  directions. 
They  are  more  mischievous  and  humorous ;  more  affectionate  and  self-sacrific- 
ing, and  far  more  sophisticated. 

Certain  ideals  of  conduct  which  I  have  thought  purely  individual,  I  now 
believe  to  be  evolved  from  human  association.  Most  eight-year-old  deaf  boys 
have  no  idea  that  it  is  unmanly  to  cry,  but  I  have  known  four,  all  with  deaf 
brothers  very  near  their  own  ages,  who  prided  themselves  on  "  being  like  men." 


95 

Lessons  in  manners  and  conduct  which  parents  have  found  it 
impossible  to  inculcate  in  the  isolated  child,  are  early  instilled 
into  a  class,  as  a  desideratum  of  social  existence  and  comfort.  The 
rough,  disorderly  conduct  of  others,  shows  the  individual  himself 
in  a  new  light,  and  furnishes  standards  lacking  before. 

It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  intelligent  parents  to  bring  a 
child  of  five  or  six  to  the  institution  and  urge  his  admission,  under 
age,  on  the  ground  that  he  is  utterly  unmanageable  at  home.  The 
bond  of  consciousness  of  kind  unites  these  little  Ishmaels,  steadies 
their  erratic  movement,  gives  them  a  sense  of  group  dignity,  and 
group  respect,  which  the  individual  was  incapable  of  attaining. 
Later  in  the  year,  when  the  individual  offends  against  the  law  of 
society  gradually  formulating  in  the  group,  he  is  instantly  con- 
demned by  all  and  receives  the  scathing  judgment  of  excommuni- 
cation :  "  You  are  One."  This  expressive  sign  means,  "  You  are 
peculiar,  solitary,  an  outcast".  It  brings  to  instant  repentance  a 
culprit  against  whom  the  teacher  has  no  weapons. 

But  the  teacher  steps  into  a  newly  created  throne,  and  be- 
comes the  first  embodiment  of  sovereignty  ever  recognized  of  any 
of  his  charges. 

If  he  is  wise  enough  to  shape  and  follow  the  growing  public 
standard  of  conduct,  rather  than  try  to  force  it,  he  will  find  him- 
self absolutely  unassailable  in  his  position  of  exponent  of  the  law. 

Almost  no  situation  could  arise,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  year, 
in  which  the  teacher  would  not  receive  the  instant  approbation  of 
every  member  of  the  class,  except  the  creators  of  the  situation.  Of 


The  little  deaf  children  having  brothers  and  sisters  much  older  than  themselves, 
show  more  fcndness  for  the  opposite  sex  than  those  who  have  grown  up  alone. 
The  only  two  boys  whom  I  have  found  to  have,  upon  entering  young,  clear- 
ly defined  notions  of  truth  and  falsehood,  were  brothers  from  a  very  uncultivat- 
ed family.  They  were  not  particularly  well  behaved  boys,  except  in  this  mat- 
ter, and  in  their  affectionate  loyalty  to  each  other.  I  have  been  interested  to 
observe  little  family  tricks  which  could  not  possibly  have  been  learned  in  com- 
mon, but  arise  in  brothers  and  sisters  subjected  to  the  same  circumstances  at 
different  times.  The  little  girl  referred  to  as  A,  plays  the  same  antics  which 
her  brother  displayed  four  years  ago,  yet  she  could  not  have  learned  them  of 
him,  for  she  never  sees  him  during  school  hours  and  had  no  knowledge  of  lan- 
guage when  she  came.  For  example,  she  has  a  trick  of  pretending  to  misun- 
derstand orders  and  mischievously  imitating  the  teacher's  gestures  instead  of 
following  their  sense.  Her  brother  did  the  same.  Also,  in  sentence  construc- 
tion, they  have  both  chosen  some  part  of  an  action  to  write  abont  which  they 
knew  full  well  was  not  the  part  intended  for  description. 


96 

course  the  conception  of  a  virtue  developes  earlier  than  its  appli- 
cation to  one  self.  It  would  seem  that  by  the  time  a  child  begins 
to  accuse  others  of  "lying"  and  ''stealing"  he  might  be  held  ac- 
countable for  his  own  lapses,  but  this  does  not  follow.  Indeed,  it 
is  not  our  judgment  of  others  which  is  modelled  upon  our  own  in- 
nate sense  of  right  and  wrong,  but  rather  the  opposite,  and  in  a 
school  for  the  deaf,  as  in  the  world,  we  define  vice  and  virtue  in 
reference  to  the  acts  of  others,  and  slowly  find  a  parallel  in  our 
own  acts. 

Fighting  is  rare,  while  bickering  is  universal.  (The  readiness 
with  which  a  child  will  accuse  another  with  his  left  hand  of  a 
fault  which  he  himself  is  perpetrating  with  his  right  hand,  reminds 
one  of  present  international  complications).  Every  effort  which  a 
conscientious  teacher  can  exert  for  the  improvement  of  his  class 
becomes  a  new  means  of  recrimination  among  the  members.  Yet 
actual  injury,  one  by  another,  is  almost  unknown.  The  favorite 
method  of  showing  spite  is  to  write  an  enemy's  name  in  an  im- 
proper fashion,  i.  e.  backwards,  or  upside  down,  or  spelled  wrong, 
or  with  a  cross  after  it.  It  is  a  deep  offense  to  write  another's 
name  with  a  different  colored  crayon.  Sometimes  an  enemy's 
name  is  omitted  from  a  sentence,  which  should  contain  it,  and  an 
offensive  dash  takes  its  place.* 

The  symbolism  of  these  acts  constitutes  their  point  of  interest. 
I  suppose  a  rough  and  ready  system  of  control  might  find  these 
children  ready  to  inflict  actual  pain  upon  each  other,  but  as  it  is, 
simple  expression  of  dislike  is  sufficient  outrage  upon  a  foe,  and 
mere  expression  of  disapproval  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  is  pun- 
ishment severe  enough  for  any  occasion.  Even  quiet  reproof  must 
be  used  very  sparingly,  as  the  children  are  excessively  sensitive  to 
it  in  its  most  trifling  manifestations^ 

*(This  reminds  one  of  the  discussion  which  took  place  a  few  years  ago  be- 
tween Mr.  Frederick  Harrison  and  some  Cleric  or  other,  upon  the  inspiration 
of  the  Bible.  Mr.  Harrison  referred  to  ' '  god,  the  suppositions  author  of  the 
bible,"  and  his  opponent  retorted  with  "  frederick  harrison,  the  purported 
author  of  literary  essays)." 

f  A  little  girl's  slate  was  lost,  the  other  day,  and  she  was  obliged  to  use  a 
broken  one.  She  accepted  this  very  sweetly  at  first,  but  in  a  few  cninutes  be- 
gan to  cry,  saying:  "I  am  bad."  When  assured  that  necessity,  not  her  de- 
serts, occasioned  the  disgrace,  she  cheered  up  and  asked  to  be  excused  for  the 
mistake. 

A  picture  of  a  pig  was  shown  to  a  little  boy,  the  same  day  ;  he  wept  violent- 


97 

It  is  somewhat  surprising  to  see  how  far  simple  reproof  and 
reiteration  of  the  law  can  be  depended  upon  to  check  childish  ex- 
cesses, because  a  general  impression  prevails  that  merely  nominal 
penalties  are  insufficient  to  control  normal  children,  and  that  even 
babies  must  feel  the  weight  of  positive  restriction.  I  cannot  but 
feel  that  a  more  gingerly  handling  of  infant  faults  would  result  in 
a  sensitive  and  easily  influenced  temper;  for  we  all  know  that 
dogs  which  are  trained  by  women  are  often  controlled  wholly  by 
word  of  mouth  and  develop  an  almost  morbid  conscientiousness 
under  this  regime.  Dogs,  too,  are  sensitive  to  symbolic  punish- 
ments. The  disgrace  of  public  disapproval  is,  of  course,  the  keen- 
est pang  in  the  penalty  paid  by  an  adult  for  breaches  of  public 
order.  Some  uncivilized  races  have  utilized  this  sensitiveness  to 
public  opinion  to  control  crime,  but  civilized  man  seems  to  have 
laid  aside  the  systematic  use  of  a  very  delicate  weapon. 

It  is  asserted  by  many  who  know  the  deaf  well,  that  even 
though  they  undoubtedly  show  ample  respect  for  law  and  authori- 
ty,* they  remain  through  life  unsympathetic,  selfish  and  grasping. 
But  those  who  know  them  best,  deny  this,  and  assert  that  the  deaf, 
like  every  one  else,  give  their  sympathy  where  they  give  their  con- 
fidence; that  is,  to  other  deaf.  They  are  clannish,  it  is  true, 
but  we  are  all  clannish,  only  that  some  have  larger  clans  than  oth- 
ers. I  make  no  claim  that  the  deaf  ever  become  truly  altruistic 
outside  their  own  ranks;  but  within  that  pale,  they  are  loyal,  self- 
sacrificing  and  affectionate,  having  all  the  social  virtues  fully  de- 
veloped. 


SUMMARY. 

The  uneducated  deaf  child  is  non-social  and  unmoral  (not  im- 
moral). He  has  little  caution  and  no  idea  of  authority.  He  has 
no  notion  of  justice  when  it  limits  his  own  action.  He  bitterly  re- 
ly, in  the  notion  that  I  had  seen  him  eating  his  dinner,  and  had  chosen  this  way 
to  punish  him. 

An  older  boy,  having  one  day  been  sent  to  the  Kindergarten  for  a  punish- 
ment, some  misbehavior  on  the  part  of  a  primary  pupil  called  out  from  another 
the  threat  :  "If  you  are  not  careful,  you  will  be  promoted  to  a  higher  class." 

*I  have  even  known  a  deaf  man  to  check  his  horse  upon  encountering  at 
the  entrance  of  a  bridge,  the  sign,  "Ten  dollars  fine,"  etc. 


98 

sents  interference  with  his  slightest  right  or  privilege,  yet  has  no 
conception  of  the  rights  of  others.  This  is  because  he  never,  be- 
fore entering  school,  encounters  his  peers.  He  is  not  to  be  man- 
aged like  an  ordinary  child  of  his  age,  but  tolerantly,  like  a  baby. 
Harshness  at  this  period  would  ruin  his  life.  He  learns  by  inter- 
est and  imitation,  and  identifies  his  interests  with  those  of  the 
school  authorities  much  earlier  and  more  thoroughly  than  the 
average  child.  The  deaf  child  of  three  months'  standing  in  school 
is  more  orderly  and  docile  than  his  hearing  brother. 


AESTHETIC  PREFERENCES. 


One  of  the  most  suggestive  phases  of  the  status  of  uneducated 
deaf  children  is  their  aesthetic  preference,  and  it  is  in  this  field,  as 
in  that  of  morals,  that  I  feel  we  may  learn  from  the  unconscious 
self-revelation  of  the  Defective,  something  of  the  development  of 
the  normal  human  being.  If  there  be  a  standard  of  absolute 
beauty,  whose  elements  every  where  appeal  to  the  percipient 
human  subject,  I  can  see  no  reason  why  the  deaf  child  of  eight, 
thrown  back  on  nature  for  companionship,  witli  ample  time  to 
develop  his  dawning  likes  and  dislikes,  should  not  have  his  full 
appreciation  of  such  beauty.  And  I  have  heard  the  deaf  called 
naturally  aesthetic.  In  fact,  their  pleasure  in  looking  about,  in  see- 
ing a  succession  of  lively  images  passing  before  their  eyes  and  sig- 
nificant events  transpiring  about  them,  is  very  evident  to  a  casual 
observer,  but,  upon  closer  observation,  it  becomes  just  as  evident, 
that  much  of  this  interest  is  in  reading  mysteries — finding  out  the 
meaning  of  things — and  this  means  the  human  meaning  of  things. 
In  riding  or  walking  with  the  class  which  entered  last  fall,  I 
found  it  impossible  to  arouse  any  response  when  I  pointed  to  blue 
sky,  white  snow,  green  grass — but  the  instant  a  sign  of  human 
agency  appeared,  I  found  them  all  excitement.  Who  made  it? 
What  for?  When?  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  In  fact  their  intellectual  inter- 
est is  much  easier  to  arouse  than  their  aesthetic  taste. 

I  provided  bright  picture-books  for  my  first  class,  but  found 
them  quite  meaningless  to  the  children,  while  mercantile  cata- 


99 

logues,  filled  with  cuts  of  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  were  caught  up 
like  fairy  stories. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  perceive  that  the  children  have  any 
choice  of  weather  (i.  e.  between  bright  and  dull)  until  they  find  them- 
selves prohibited  from  going  out  in  the  damp.  Of  course,  to  the 
educated  taste,  all  aspects  of  nature  and  all  atmospheres  are  beau- 
tiful, but  there  is  a  preliminary  stage  of  culture  to  which  striking 
contrasts  and  brilliant  coloring  are  the  marks  of  beauty.  I  can  not 
ascertain  that  children  left  to  their  own  devices,  for  the  first  eight 
years  of  life,  have  entered  upon  this  stage  of  aesthetic  discrimina- 
tion. Perhaps  no  child  has.  Children  and  uncultivated  persons 
are  dissatisfied  with  a  picture  which  does  not  tell  them  a  story,  as 
though  they  sought  to  satisfy  an  intellectual  curiosity,  rather  than 
an  esthetic  craving.  I  have  seen  elaborate  reports  upon  the  color 
and  form  preferences  of  children,  but  my  own  experiments  in  this 
line  have  rendered  me  somewhat  skeptical  of  the  value  of  such 
records. 

My  school  journal  for  the  year  '94-'95  contained  the  following 
note:  "Red  is  the  favorite  color  with  the  deaf:  I  shall  get  most 
of  the  Kindergarten  materials  of  that  color  next  year."  In  my 
journal  for  '95-'96  I  find:  ''I  made  the  mistake  this  year  of  think- 
ing that  the  children  preferred  red  to  any  other  color,  and  laid  in  a 
large  stock  of  weaving  material  in  red.  But  the  very  first  week  an 
influential  girl  chose  a  blue  mat,  and  blue  has  been  the  color  par 
excellence  all  the  year." 

The  third  year  I  amused  myself  with  an  experiment.  I  fur- 
nished the  children  all  around  with  Kindergarten  materials  of 
various  hues,  only  took  care  not  to  give  any  one  green.  I  kept 
two  or  three  green  cards  in  my  hand,  while  distributing,  and  took 
officious  pains  now  and  then  hastily  to  cover  them  with  other  col- 
ors. At  last,  when  some  one  asked  for  green,  I  evinced  great  re- 
luctance to  part  with  that  color,  and  finally  intimated  that  there 
was  only  a  "little,  little,"  of  it.  Finally  I  bestowed  a  specimen 
upon  the  oldest  pupil — best  scholar  and  quickest  worker  in  the 
class,  and  denied  it  to  any  one  else.  Before  that  hour  drew  to  a 
close,  I  had  instilled  into  that  particular  class  a  passion  for  the 
color  green,  so  lively  that  I  doubt  if  it  be  yet  lulled  to  indifference. 

And  I  feel  that  here  we  find  the  key  to  ^Esthetic  Preferences, 


100 

even  if  we  have  not  been  able  to  trace  the  connection.  Rarity  and 
fashion  constitute  beauty.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  preferences  of 
all  children  are  all  swayed  by  jealousy.  This  primary  emotion 
happens  to  be  the  strongest  social  factor  with  our  hitherto  seques- 
tered charges.  But  I  think  that  the  social  instinct  is  stronger  than 
the  aesthetic,  and  originally  controls  the  latter. 

With  the  deaf,  the  first  use  of  the  signs  "  pretty,"  u  nice," 
"beautiful,"  "polite,"  etc.,  comes  in  the  actual  process  of  making 
things.  Here  the  choice  of  colors  and  shapes  is  practically  forced 
upon  the  worker;  then  discussion  arises  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
choice,  and  all  tastes  and  differences  follow  of  themselves.  So  I 
should  say  that  Art,  rather  than  Nature,  gives  rise  to  ^Esthetic 
Preferences. 

I  have  had  little  opportunity  to  compare  the  ^Esthetic  devel- 
opment of  deaf  with  normal  children,  my  opinion  being  that  they 
are  both  in  much  the  same  undeveloped  state,  excepting  that  hear- 
ing children  have  imbibed  some  ready  made  opinion  from  their 
elders,  but  they  gaze  unmoved  upon  the  most  revolting  spectacles, 
and  seem  to  have  no  idea  of  ugliness.  (Most  boys  go  to  a  pig-kill- 
ing when  they  can.)  A  child  always  seems  to  admire  his  nurse,  no 
matter  how  plain  she  may^'be.  Worms,  toads,  etc.,  so  repulsive  to 
the  educated  taste,  are  often  exceedingly  attractive  to  children.  (In 
fact  I  think  the  aesthetic  capabilities  of  the  sense  of  touch  are  de- 
veloped before  those  of  sight.  A  baby  shows  fear  or  pleasure  in 
touching  a  yielding  surface  long  before  he  takes  notice  of  colors). 

I  should  not  say,  however,  that  children,  whether  deaf  or  hear- 
ing, are  aesthetically  indifferent,  although  they  appear  unconscious 
of  many  of  the  most  obvious  elements  of  beauty.  There  is  one 
source  of  aesthetic  enjoyment  unfailing  in  its  action  upon  the 
young,  and  that  is  Life  in  any  form,  whether  animal  or  vegetable. 
In  fact,  I  believe  this  sympathy  with  and  interest  in  other  living 
things  to  be  the  real  source  of  our  ideas  of  the  beautiful,  and  even 
this  may  be  called  but  an  aspect  of  the  social  instinct.  An  infant 
may  have  no  particular  choice  of  colors,  but  as  soon  as  he  begins 
to  realize  faintly  that  grass  and  trees  grow  and  change,  he  begins  to 
dream  of  them.  The  deaf  are  no  exception  to  this  rule.  The  liv- 
ing things  at  home  are  all  catalogued  in  memory.  "  Picking  flow- 
ers" occupies  all  the  leisure  hours  of  the  smaller  children,  from  the 
disappearance  of  the  snow  until  the  close  of  school. 


101 

The  color  preferences  of  the  first  year  class  of  1898  and  1899 
are  as  follows : 

123  4  567  89          10 

Red  red  purple  purple   yellow   green   pink   brown   gray   orange. 

The  children  were  not  separated  when  asked  for  their  choice; 
it  is  evident  that  the  first  four  started  out  with  the  idea  of  match- 
ing colors  with  cronies.  The  remaining  six  conceived  the  notion 
that  it  would  be  better  for  each  to  choose  a  separate  color. 

The  entering  class  of  1899-1900  were  given  choice  of  colors 
separately.  The  choice  stood  as  follows: 

123          45  and  6      7  and  8      9,  10,  11,  12,  and  13. 
Blue,  red,  green,  pink,    purple,     orange,  yellow. 

(There  were  no  dull  shades  to  choose  from — nor  black  or  white). 

With  the  class  of  1894-5  the  first  application  of  the  term 
"pretty"  to  a  human  being  was  when  I  wrote:  "Give  this  cup  of 
water  to  a  pretty  little  boy.''  The  child  commanded  gave  it  at 
random  to  the  first  boy  he  encountered,  and  this  established  the 
reputation  of  that  particular  boy  as  the  beau  ideal  of  beauty  for 
the  rest  of  the  year ;  whereas  he  was,  without  exception,  the  plain- 
est and  ungainliest  of  the  class. 

Two  children,  soon  after  their  arrival,  told  me  that  their  moth- 
ers were  very  pretty,  which  I  afterwards  discovered  was  true. 

A  little  girl  a  few  days  ago,  as  a  portly  visitor  left  the  room, 
said:  " I  don't  like  fat  ladies,  I  want  them  thin."  (Compressing 
her  own  plump  cheeks  to  make  them  hollow). 

Choice  of  toys  is  a  rather  interesting  chapter  in  development. 
Up  to  fifteen  or  sixteen,  these  children  have  apparently  no  con- 
ventional creed  as  to  the  unsuitability  of  girls'  toys  for  boys,  or 
vice  versa.  (I  mean,  of  course,  the  new  comers.)  A  class  contain- 
ing two  bright  boys  of  fifteen,  and  three  twelve  and  thirteen,  unani- 
mously chose  dolls  for  their  Christmas  presents,  and  later,  in  the 
relaxation  hours,  preferred  to  dress  these  toys  to  any  other  occu- 
pation. Nevertheless,  when  the  girls  begged  to  take  home  their 
dolls  in  the  spring  the  boys  said  they  were  "dry,'' — but  I  found 
that  they  were  glad  to  appropriate  the  toys  if  they  could  be  put  in 
their  trunks  without  inspection  by  the  other  boys.  In  playing 
with  dolls,  the  boys  kiss  and  fondle  them  quite  as  rapturously  as 
the  girls,  and  are  fully  as  demonstrative  over  the  appearance  of  a 


102 

baby.     The  latter  is  true  even  with  deaf  boys  of  advanced  grade. 
"Little  Sweet"  is  the  universal  sign  at  the  sight  of  a  little  child. 


SUMMARY. 


The  untaught  deaf,  like  other  neglected  children,  show  little 
regard  for  beauty  in  itself.  They  are  not  particularly  attracted  by 
bright  colors,  or  graceful  forms,  until  they  find  their  public  opin- 
ion and  are  influenced  thereby  to  formulate  their  aBsthetic  prefer- 
ences. 

At  first  they  enjoy  utilities  more  than  ornamentation,  and  it 
is  only  by  trying  to  make  beautiful  things  that  they  seem  to  learn 
to  value  the  ifleal  beauty.  Even  in  this  respect,  however,  I  believe 
them  not  much  inferior  to  normal  children. 


To  show  the  social  complexity  existing  in  a  class  of  deaf  child- 
ren, I  have  taken  notes  of  the  social  action  and  reaction  in  my 
school  room  for  one  half  hour,  one  which  happened  to  be  a  little 
more  exciting  than  usual. 

"A.",  to  a  little  girl  who  is  one  of  a  large  family  of  deaf,  "run 
and  jump  over  this  stick,"  (this  to  give  material  for  composition.) 
A.  approaches  the  stick,  then  signs  whimsically :  "  Oh !  I  don't 
want  to  jump  over  a  stick,  I  would  rather  flirt."  With  an  irresist- 
able  suddenness  she  darts  to  the  back  of  the  room  and  hugs  and 
kisses  a  boy  of  thirteen.  He  gravely  disengages  himself  and  signs : 
"  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself.  "  Another  boy  sitting  by, 
adds  magisterially  :  "You  must  apologize  to  Ole  for  teasing  him." 
A.  blushingly  apologizes  and  the  scene  ends. 

I  now  begin  to  put  some  work  upon  the  board.  After  I  have 
written  a  sentence  or  two,  a  boy  rushes  up  with  a  pointer,  and 
shows  me  that  I  have  been  so  partial  as  to  use  the  word  "  The  " 
three  times.  He  signs  :  "  This  is  perfectly  sickening ;  you  should 
only  write  each  word  once." 

Soon  1  am  compelled  to  climb  on  a  stool  to  finish  the  work. 


103 

While  I  am  in  the  act  I  am  plucked  by  the  sleeve  and  a  little  girl 
stands  at  my  elbow  to  report  that  J.  has  taken  off  his  shoes  and 
hid  them  in  his  desk.  J.  is  commanded  to  put  them  on.  Tale- 
bearing having  met  with  such  unexpected  encouragement,  every 
hand  in  the  room  is  raised  to  tell  about  somebody  else  who  some- 
time or  other  has  done  something  or  other  that  was  "  impolite." 

White  I  am  waving  down  these  gossips,  the  bench  I  am  stand- 
ing on  overturns,  and  we  fall  together  with  a  crash.  A  shout  of 
delighted  laughter  bursts  from  the  school.  I  rise  without  looking 
around,  and  finish  my  work  in  stiff  displeasure.  When  I  finally 
face  the  class,  anxiety  is  upon  every  brow  :  "  Did  you  get  hurt?" 
"Yes."  "Oh,  I  pity  you."  " I  am  very  sorry."  "I  am  down- 
hearted." I  add:  "And  I  thought  I  heard  somebody  laugh." 
Disgust  and  astonished  condemnation  is  now  the  universal  expres- 
sion ;  every  forefinger  points  to  little  J.,  who,  still  wrestling  with 
his  shoe  strings,  has  not  noted  the  catastrophe.  Then  a  new 
wave  of  feeling  approaches  and  the  laughter  bursts  forth  again, 
while  everyone  but  little  J.  confesses  :  "  I  laughed  too,  a  little  bit." 

This  disgression  is  succeeded  by  another  when  a  girl  who  has 
come  into  the  proud  possession  of  a  package  of  sachet  powder,  asks 
me  if  I  will  please  open  the  door  so  that  she  may  "  smell  farther 
into  the  hall." 

It  is  now  time  to  collect  slates,  etc.  A  tall  boy  rises  and 
waving  his  arms  frantically  to  attract  my  attention,  points  to 
Ii is  little  brother  who  sits  in  front  with  folded  arms,  a  picture  of 
immobility.  The  older  boy  signs:  "May  he  pick  up  the  slates? 
He  is  so  good  and  sits  so  quiet^  not  like  me,  brandishing  my  arms ! 
You  said  no  one  could  take  up  the  slates  who  got  up  and  asked  to 
do  it."  This  is  very  sweet  and  brotherly,  so  I  pretend  not  to 
have  seen  the  little  boy  kick  out  behind  violently  to  remind  the 
older  one  of  his  promise  to  throw  himself  into  the  breach.  The 
younger  boy  has  been  obedient  from  his  waist  up,  and  that  is  ac- 
cepted as  a  whole  virtue  for  once. 


104 
GENERAL  SUMMARY. 


This  paper  is  not  a  general  comparison  of  the  Deaf  and  the 
Hearing;  although  many  general  differences  are  discernible,  the 
subject  is  as  yet  too  little  worked  to  afford  data  for  a  comparison. 
It  is  merely  a  statement  of  observations  made  upon  eight-year-old 
deaf  children,  and,  where  such  is  possible,  a  comparison  with  the 
hearing  of  the  same  age. 

The  special  points  noted  show  that  the  average  deaf  child, 
though  quite  untaught  in  human  conventions,  is  yet  very  near  the 
standard  of  the  normal  hearing  child.  His  defect  seems  not  to 
have  detracted  from  his  healthy  development — nay,  further,  his 
complete  isolation  from  human  companionship  does  not  seem  to 
have  intrinsically  differentiated  him  from  other  children.  He  is 
as  healthy,  as  strong,  and  as  deft  with  his  fingers;  more  observant, 
memorizes  more  readily ;  is  more  attentive,  careful  and  industri- 
ous. He  readily  learns  to  concentrate  himself  upon  a  given  task, 
and  works,  not  for  rewards,  but  for  the  pleasure  of  mental  and 
manual  exercise,  and,  I  am  ready  to  maintain,  from  a  sense  of  duty. 
He  accomplishes,  in  the  course  of  the  first  year,  quite  as  much  as 
the  ordinary  child  in  his  first  year  at  school,  and  this  notwith- 
standing the  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  advancement. 

We  find  him,  while  not  really  spiritual-minded,  interested  in 
all  religious  concepts  which  can  be  conveyed  to  him.  We  find 
him,  from  the  first,  employing  symbolism  and  generalization  in  his 
thought  processes.  We  find  him  alive  to  causation  in  its  various 
phases.  At  the  same  time  we  find  him  originally  unsocial,  selfish, 
and  unmoral.  These  qualities,  with  the  quickening  of  the'  social 
feelings,  fall  into  subordination  to  the  higher  nature,  and  he  rapid- 
ly acquires  a  high  status  of  child  morality. 

He  is  interested  more  in  manufactured  articles  than  in  natural 
beauty,  and  though  I  have  little  evidence  that  he  adapts  means  to 
ends,  he  has,  even  from  the  start,  the  liveliest  notion  that  every  ef- 
fort should  be  devoted  to  some  end,  and  that  everything  made 
should  have  a  purpose. 

In  the  child's  work  there  is  no  apparent  nervous  loss  from  the 
fact  that  one  source  of  rhythmic  perception  is  lacking,  but  it  seems 


105 

almost  certain  that,  in  the  long  run,  the  deaf  working  unit  would 
have  a  smaller  economic  value,  from  the  limitation  of  opportunity 
for  forming  correct  judgments. 

The  little  deaf  child  has  a  quickness  of  observation  which  is 
not  found  in  the  deaf  adult.  The  industrial  character  of  the  deaf 
adult  leads  him  to  sacrifice  general  observation  to  concentration  of 
attention. 

I  have  anticipated  any  conclusions  which  I  designed  to  draw 
from  this  study.  The  facts  adduced  show  that  the  little  deaf  child 
is  not  mentally,  or  physically  inferior  to  the  normal  child,  although 
he  has  been  socially  sequestered  for  the  first  eight  years. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  take  credit  to  ourselves  as  nurses  and 
tutors  of  infant  humanity  for  every  step  in  its  progress  from  im- 
becility to  logical  maturity,  that  it  seems  to  me  any  evidence  of 
independent,  instinctive  mental  development  must  have  a  nega- 
tive if  not  a  positive  value. 

If,  for  instance,  we  find  the  untaught  child  of  eight  as  men- 
tally capable  and  far  more  hungry  for  knowledge  than  the  product 
of  our  best  educational  systems ;  if  we  find  him  seizing  with  avidity 
upon  opportunities  for  culture  which  the  normal  child  rejects  as 
irksome,  we  may  see  cause  to  question  the  value  of  the  everlasting 
adult  interference  in  infant  development,  upon  which  the  mental 
soundness  of  the  coining  race  is  supposed  to  depend. * 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  the  unsocialized  deaf  child  sel- 
fish, grasping  and  unsympathetic,  in  a  word  unsocial  and  un- 
moral, but  never  cruel  or  vulgar,  we  may  learn  in  what  direction 
human  companionship  is  most  helpful  and  most  hurtful  to  ordi- 
nary children. 

In  view  of  the  tremendous  difficulties  in  the  way  of  teaching 
anything  to  very  young  children,  and  their  unaccountable  facility 
for  learning  everything  they  see;  in  view  of  their  callousness  to  our 
preaching  and  their  fatal  habit  of  imitating  our  practices,  I  am 
free  to  state  my  own  conviction,  that  the  main  service  which  the 
adult  generation  can  render  the  infant  generation  consists  in  feed- 

*("  A  Child's  Letters  to  her  Husband"  H.  W.  Moody.  McClure's  Maga- 
zine, Nov.  1899. 

"  Martha  says  she  has  taken  care  of  me  since  I  was  a  little  baby,  and  fed 
me  and  taught  me  to  walk,  and  that  I  ought  to  be  very  grateful  to  her  for  it.  I 
am.  How  sad  it  would  be  if  I  had  never  learned  to  walk)." 


106 

ing,  clothing,  unlimited  petting  and  living  decently  in  their  scru- 
tiny ;  in  other  words,  that,  for  the  first  few  years  of  life,  savage  ba- 
bies and  bear  cubs  are  reared  as  well  as  princes  need  to  be,  provid- 
ed, always,  that  the  highest  racial  ideals  of  conduct  are  embodied 
in  the  manners  of  the  nurse. 

Yet,  granted  the  normal  development  of  the  little  deaf  child, 
all  admit  that  the  adult  congenital  deaf-mute  is  not  of  normal  in- 
telligence as  we  use  the  word. 

It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  two  conclusions  must  follow  :  first, 
the  unlikely  one  that  the  deaf  belong  to  a  really  inferior  order,  and 
follow  the  rule  of  mental  growth  often  noticed  in  inferior  races, 
viz:  that  of  an  early  and  limited  development,  showing  in  child- 
hood a  mental  capacity  almost  equal  to  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
and  a  sudden  arrest  of  growth  at  the  age  of  twelve  or  thirteen ;  soon 
after  this  signs  of  failing  powers.  As  I  say,  that  is  a  very  im- 
probable hypothesis ;  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  deaf- 
mute's  defect  to  alter  the  lines  of  racial  development. 

Rather,  we  should  seek  to  find  a  lack  of  some  educative  influ- 
ence of  minor  importance  to  all  children,  but  of  vital  significance 
in  the  period  of  adolescence.  This  can  be  none  other  than  the  in- 
fluence of  artificial  language,  and  the  world  of  concepts  which  it 
bears  upon  its  Atlas  shoulders.  I  think  I  am  right  in  maintaining 
that  this  influence  is  not  greatly  active  in  early  childhood,  but,  in 
the  "long,  long  thoughts"  of  youth,  comes  into  great  prominence. 

There  is  a  stage  in  human  development,  as  in  national  devel- 
opment, when  the  youth,  like  the  nation,  awakes  to  self-conscious- 
ness and  self-expression.  This  is  not  the  stage  for  learning  lan- 
guage ;  if  this  has  not  been  already  attained  it  never  will  be ;  it  is 
the  stage  which  takes  language  for  an  absolute  desideratum  of  full 
efficacy.  It  is  the  reading  age — the  age  in  which  the  youth  ab- 
sorbs the  truths  which  generations  past  have  handed  to  him.  That 
this  is  the  age  at  which  the  boy  or  girl  is  hardest  to  control,  does 
not  do  away  with  the  fact  that  it  is  the  age  at  which  human  influ- 
ence is  most  active,  and  social  intercourse  most  needed.  I  call  this 
the  truly  formative  period,  to  which  all  previous  education  is  but 
preparatory.  It  is  the  stage  at  which  the  brain  ceases  to  develop 
upon  bread,  meat  and  potatoes  alone,  and  must  find  a  more  refined 
food  or  actually  dwindle  away. 


107 

It  is  to  prepare  for  this  age  that  we  endeavor  to  teach  the  deaf* 
child  language,  and  it  is  when  he  reaches  this  age  that  we  find 
a  partial  failure  upon  our  hands.  This,  I  think,  is  not  because  of 
faulty  teaching,  but  because  no  system  of  school-room  teaching,  be 
it  ever  so  far  in  advance  of  ordinary  methods,  can  supply  to 
the  defective  all  the  thought  exercise  which  the  audible  world 
holds  for-the  normal  student.  Not  the  school-room,  but  the  play-- 
ground, the  workshop,  the  lecture-hall  and  the  newspapers,  must 
furnish  this  wider  education,  and,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  thus  far  ex^ 
pended,  we  have  only  been  able  to  give  the  deaf-mute  a  limited 
"  foreign"  language  to  fall  back  upon  at  the  crucial  period  of  his  de- 
velopment. Thus  far,  then,  the  promise  of  the  little  deaf  child  is 
not  adequately  fulfilled  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  adult.  To 
discuss  the  reasons  for  this,  and  the  hopes  which  "special  educa- 
tion" broods  over,  would  be  to  write  a  Deaf  Mute  Pedagogy. 


OVERDUE.! 


LD  21-50w-8,-33 


